


Oz Is Closer Than You Think

by fishstic



Category: The Wicked Years Series - Gregory Maguire, Wicked - All Media Types
Genre: AU, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/F, F/M, Gen, Magic, Mentions of Rape, Multi, mentions of abuse
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-07-27
Updated: 2015-05-12
Packaged: 2018-02-10 17:23:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 17
Words: 30,146
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2033508
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fishstic/pseuds/fishstic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Glinda and Elphaba are two girls living in the big city, who don't realize that it is their destiny to save both their world and the Not-So-Fictional land of Oz.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Hunter and Hummingbird

Now that she was actually thinking, she saw clearly that the world was a cruel place and that her parents had been right about walking alone in town. Though why it took being chased by a man at least twice her size to make her think, she was unsure. She turned down an alley and ran past a girl sweeping the steps at the side entrance of a sleazy restaurant. The man was fast on her heels. She slipped. The man was so close now. She flipped over onto her back so that she was looking up at her attacker started backing away from him.

"Oh come on now, girly," the man said. His voice was gruff. He sneered at her. "You don't really think that's going to help you any. Do you?"

The sad part was that she didn't, but she was thinking. There was a chance that if she screamed the people in the restaurant would hear and come to help her. She opened her mouth to scream, but before she could make a sound, the man reached down and grabbed her. He lifted her by the front of her dress and pushed her against the wall with such force that all of the breath was knocked out of her lungs.

"Poor little girly, wants to scream but can't." She struggled for breath and the man grinned at her. "It's no use girly. You're all mine. There's no one to come to your rescue."

Back at the steps of the restaurant the girl who was sweeping, stopped to observe the scene. She knew neither of them had noticed her and used that to her advantage. She gripped the broom and held it like a staff in her hand. The girl knew that there was no way she could defeat the man, unless she knocked him out cold with the first hit of the broom.

She walked up to the two of them slowly. The man leaned over the other girl. The broom girl gripped her broom even tighter. She could see now that the other girl was beautiful, perhaps why the man has chosen to pursue her. The other girl was trembling, and that caused the blonde curls resting upon her shoulders to tremble like cat's whiskers. The broom girl raised her broom high into the air and judging quickly, whacked the man right where his neck met his head. He let the blonde go and she ran and hid behind the broom girl. The man turned to them. The broom girl was half hidden in the shadows of the alley, and from what the man could see of her, she never took a bath.

"So girly thinks she can protect Blondie?"

"Apples to Apples and Oranges to Oranges. It seems that you, sir, are a very troubled man. The wily concrete jungle lion has cornered a poor defenseless hummingbird and now the fabled hunter has to step in and shoot the cowardly lion," the broom girl said.

"What?" The man stepped toward the girl. She swung her broom with as much force as she could muster and caught the man square on the knee. They all heard something crack and both girls assumed it was the broom. The man's face twisted up in pain and he cried out in shock. "What have you done?" He crumpled like a rag doll onto the alley.

The broom girl turned and grabbed the blonde by the arm. "If the hummingbird doesn't want to stop humming, she'll run with the hunter."

"What are you talking about?"

"You run with me, now."

They took off out of the alley, the broom girl leading the blonde by her arm. Soon they were far enough away from the alley that they believed that they could stop safely. The blonde pulled her arm away from the broom girl. "Who are you?"

The broom girl sighed and started to explain. "I am the hunter, protector of the weak and the downtrodden."

"What in god's name does that mean?"

"I help those who are a powerless to help themselves. I protected you, because you needed it."

The blonde stared at her. The broom girl was short, compared to the blonde. Compared to anyone really. She stood at only four foot three inches tall, while the blonde was five foot two inches. "You're so small though. How can you be so strong, so eager to protect?"

"The hunter knows not the meaning of fear. She just wants to help. It's the only way people accept her."

"Why?" The blonde didn't think the broom girl really understood what she was saying. "Why is it the only way people will accept you?"

"The hunter is different. Different than everyone. Different than you."

The blonde still wasn't sure that the broom girl understood her own words. "How different? In what way? A lot of people are different than me. If it's because you're short, don't worry. A lot of fine people are short."

"Not the height, people don't judge that. I'm little, people don't ask. I'm a different color. The hunter blends into the grass."

"Not to disappoint, brave hunter but there is no grass around here and you're the color of dirt, not grass. When was the last time you got cleaned up?"

"Time before times remembered."

"So a long time ago. What's your name? Mine's Glinda."

"My name? The hunter has for so long been called simply broom girl she has no longer a use for a name."

Glinda shook her head; this girl, whoever she was, led a sad life. "Where do you live?"

"In that alley. The cowardly lion has driven the hunter from her home. The boss man of the restaurant won't like that I'm gone, but he'll find someone else to do my job."

"Do you get paid for sweeping?"

"The hunter makes no money, but she does get scraps, when the chef remembers that I am outside."

"This just won't do." Glinda grabs the broom girl's arm and leads her away.

"Where are we going, hummingbird?"

"To my nest, hunter."

"Where there's a mama and a papa hummingbird?"

"Yes. Is that a problem, hunter?"

"The hunter doesn't think mama and papa hummingbird will like her very much."

Glinda shook her head. "You are some kind of special, hunter. My parents don't judge my friends."

"Friend?" The broom girl tested the word, as though she had never heard it before. "What's that, hummingbird?"

The blonde stopped leading her for a second to get her bearings straight and sighed. "A friend is a special person, which one hangs out with. It's someone you get along with, it's a person that you share a bond with. It's not easy to explain what a friend is."

"If you can't explain it, how do you know it's a good thing?"

Glinda shook her head. "You are some kind of difficult. Friendship is the only ship worth being on. It's the only ship you can ride your entire life and never have to worry. Friendship is the best ship, because if it is true, it never sinks."

The broom girl shook her head. "I don't like ships, they make my tummy hurt."

Glinda glanced at her and started off again. "Since when have you ever been on a ship?"

"My mommy took me on one when I was really little. I don't come from here. I come across big water. Mommy gone now though. She's not to be found. I can't remember if I left her or she left me."

Glinda guided the girl through the crowds of people and smiled "Little hunter, we're almost to hummingbird's nest."

The broom girl glanced around at all the people and whimpered. The crowds scared her. She wasn't used to them and she was frightened. Glinda pulled her along and then led her away from the crowds into a small gated community, "The Emerald Meadows". It wasn't far from the front gates of the community to Glinda's house. The broom girl walked more easily here, because there wasn't any crowds. Glinda looked back at the girl and noticed that she was having trouble keeping up. The girl stumbled along behind and then sort of stopped walking.

"Hunter is tired. Hunter wants to know how much longer it is."

Glinda walked back to stand beside the girl. "Are you very heavy?" The girl shook her head and Glinda moved to be in front of her. She knelt down in front of the broom girl, took the broom from her, let the girl wrap her arms around her neck gently and then picked her up, cradling her legs on her arms like a little chair. "You're light as a feather. Piggy back ride to my house then."

Glinda carried the girl the last three and a half blocks to her house. Her house looked pretty big from the street. A simple Victorian style house with a porch that wrapped around the left side of the house, two floors visible from the street, and plenty of windows. It was red in color. Glinda started to tell the broom girl that they had arrived, but when she glanced over her shoulder to the girl she saw that she was asleep. She walked up the steps to the porch carrying the girl and then used her foot to knock on the front door, afraid that if she used her hand and just opened it, she might drop the girl by accident.

Her mother opened the door, "Who… Glinda? What are you doing? Where have you been? Who is that?"

"Helping a friend. Out on the town, you told me I could. She's a friend."

Glinda's mom looked over the two of them and seeing that neither one was hurt let them both inside without further question. Glinda carefully laid the girl on the blue and white couch in their living room and set the broom down beside it.

"So," Glinda's mom said, "what's your friend's name?"

Glinda couldn't tell her mom that she didn't know. She thought about what the girl had said to her.  _The hunter blends into the grass._ "Hunter."

"Is that her real name or just what you call her?"

"It's what I call her."

Glinda's mom shook her head and sighed. "You have no idea what this kid's name is do you?"

"What makes you think that?"

"Hunter is a boy's name. Besides, she looks like she hasn't had a bath in years. She's homeless isn't she?"

"Yes. But mama, she saved my life. I owe her."

"Saved your life how?"

Glinda told the story of how the man had chased her and 'Hunter' stepped in with her broom. "She whacked him hard with the broom. I think she broke his knee. She probably didn't mean to hurt him that bad, but what works, works."

"What have we told you about going into the bad part of town alone?"

"Don't, but I didn't mean to. I got a little turned around. That doesn't matter, I think I was meant to find her. You keep saying I need to find friends, close to my own age. She fits that description."

"She's a grubby little homeless child."

"Mom, you always say we should help those who are less fortunate that we are. She's the most least fortunate girl I have ever seen."

"Most least? Do they teach you nothing in that school of yours?"

"It's proper. I think, I'll ask about it on Monday, but mom, we should at least try to help her."

Glinda's mom glanced at the sleeping girl on the couch. "She couldn't be much older than ten don't you think?"

"Maybe, but I'm only thirteen, that makes us close to the same age."

"If you say so. Where's her mother?"

"Gone. She can't remember who left who, but she does remember they came here on a ship."

"So she's an immigrant child. I'm not sure how much we can legally do for her. What did you say her job was when you found her?"

"Sweeping the steps of a sleazy restaurant for scraps of food."

"She can stay, but we need to do three things. One: Get her cleaned up. Two: Feed her. Three: Find out who this little 'Hunter' really is."

"I think we should let her sleep first."

Glinda's mom sighed. "Of course, sweet girl. I wasn't suggesting we wake her up for that, not yet anyway."


	2. Oil Bath

Glinda was working on her homework in the living room when the broom girl woke up. She was hard at work on a philosophy question, trying to reason if the wicked ever chose to become good, then would the world let them even have the chance to make that decision. She dropped her pencil in frustration.

"The world is mysterious. So is my surroundings. You, hummingbird. Am I in your nest?"

Glinda jumped at the sound of the girl's voice. "Yes, hunter. You are in my nest. Be glad I am not a spider. I would have eaten you by now."

The girl sat up on the couch. She looked over to Glinda and then stood up. Walking over to Glinda, the girl was awed by the fluffy carpet under her feet. "What is hummingbird working on?"

"Homework for school."

The girl was confused. "What is school?"

Glinda looked at the girl trying to measure how serious of a question that was. "You really don't know?"

"I really don't. Please tell me."

"School is a place where people go to learn things. People sit in a room called a classroom with other people who are there to learn and a person called a teacher teaches things to the people who are there to learn and are called students."

"What? That doesn't sound like it works very well. I'm confused."

Glinda's mom stood in the doorway to the kitchen. "Well when she explains it like that it's no wonder you're confused. A school is, in the basest sense, a source of knowledge. People, who are called students, go to a school to learn information. That information is usually things like history, math, science and language, but at certain schools people can learn much more than that. The school that Glinda goes to teaches people philosophy, art and a few other things."

"What is philosophy?"

"It's the art of thinking." Glinda's mom walked into the living room and sat down on the couch.

"It asks questions like what is the meaning of life and why does wickedness happen," Glinda said looking back over her philosophy homework.

"The meaning of life? Isn't that in a dictionary somewhere?" The girl sat down beside Glinda and looked at the paper she was working with.

"Not the definition of life, the meaning of it. Why are we here? Why do we make choices? What separates people from animals? A lot of philosophy has to do with the statement 'I think, therefore I am.' The question becomes: Is thinking what separates man from beast and if so how do we know that animals don't think?"

"I think," the girl said. "I think that animals inherently aren't all that different from humans. When the wily concrete jungle lion is on the prowl he isn't any different from a lion on the hunt in the savannah. Animals know exactly what they are doing, and usually so do humans. The difference between animals and humans is that we choose to do bad things, and animals only do what is needed of them to survive."

Glinda looked at the girl. "Hunter are you sure that you've never been to school?"

"Quite sure."

"Mom, we have to get her into school. She would do well there."

"I can't read. Or write."

Glinda and her mom both looked at the girl. "You're kidding, right," Glinda said.

"No. I can't read or write. I never learned. I never went to school."

Glinda's mom sat up a little straighter on the couch. "First thing's first, Glinda. 'Hunter' needs to take a bath, or ten."

Glinda stood up and stretched. She reached down and took the girl by the hand. "Come on hunter, we'll get you cleaned up in no time."

"With water?"

Glinda and her mom exchanged a confused glance.

"Of course with water," Glinda's mom said. "How else would you bathe?"

The little one shook her head vigorously. "No water. Please. Oil."

"Oil? How do you bathe with oil?"

"It's not hard. Just kind rub the oil over the skin. Oil dissolves oil, and dirt. It cleans just as good if not better than soap and water."

"What kind of oil? Baby, olive, what?"

"Any oil should work. Just please, not water."

Glinda lead the girl to her bathroom. She opened the cabinets and looked through them. She came out with a bottle of baby oil. "Do you think this will work?"

The girl took the bottle and looked over it. "I can try." She grabbed a washcloth and poured some oil onto it. Then she rubbed it on the back of her left hand with her right. Glinda's mom stood in the doorway watching. Glinda watched closely and saw that as she rubbed the oil over her skin it removed the dirt, but instead of cream colored skin or any other variation of a normal skin color, the skin that showed through was emerald green. Not an ugly color, just not normal.

"Hunter is that your natural skin color," Glinda asked.

Glinda's mom walked over to the two of them and watched as the girl cleaned more of her hand, revealing more emerald green skin.

"I told you hummingbird. The hunter blends in with the grass. People don't like me."

Glinda's mom marveled at the sight of her natural skin color. "You're such a pretty color when you're clean. Let's get you all cleaned up."

Glinda and her mom helped the girl remove her dirty clothes and poured baby oil onto more washcloths and helped her get nice and clean. Glinda's mom washed the girl's back while Glinda washed her front and the girl washed her own arms. It didn't take long before she was a sparkling emerald in front of them.


	3. Elphaba

Glinda left the bathroom in a hurry.

"Do you think something is wrong," the girl asked Glinda's mom.

"I don't know," Glinda mom's said. They waited and five minutes later Glinda came running back in with a bottle in her left hand and one of her mom's shirts in the right.

"Mom I hope you don't mind. I found this shirt in your closet. I know it was a gift from your sister, Auntie Christina, who works in one of the theaters, but you never wear it. And this," Glinda held up the bottle as she spoke, "I know is dry shampoo. No water needed, you always use it when we go camping. So I figure it'd be perfect for cleaning her hair. It needs it."

Glinda's mom smiled and they helped the little one into the shirt. "It's clean and besides Glinda, it's too small for me that's why I never wear it. I was going to give it to you one day." The shirt hung down to the floor on the little one. "It looks like a dress on her."

"Who's this?" The girl said pointing to the figure on her shirt. It was a green woman in a black dress riding on a broom, and underneath it were the words: Don't make me release the flying monkeys. "And what does it say?"

"That's the wicked witch of the west and it says 'Don't make me release the flying monkeys,'" Glinda told her.

"People don't like her do they?"

Glinda's mom started working the dry shampoo through the girl's hair. "Well little one, it depends on which story you read. People don't like her in the original tale, it's true. But in the newer tale we learn her side of the story and learn why people don't like her. In the new story we learn that she had friends. People that actually cared for her."

"What story? Is she not a real witch?"

"No she's made up. She lives in the fictional land of Oz."

"Then, if she's not real, why don't people like her?"

Glinda sat down on the floor in front of the girl. "Hunter, people are strange. They can like and hate fictional characters with a stronger passion than they choose to show for real people. But when we say people didn't like her, we mean people in her storybook land. People in the real world didn't have enough time knowing her as a character to develop any feeling for her one way or the other until the new story came out. Now most people who read the new story like her."

"Do people not like me because I am the same color as the wicked witch of the west?"

"People don't like you because they are shallow and choose to judge a book by its cover instead of the story that's inside."

"I think you have a beautiful cover," Glinda's mom said. "And anyone who says different is lying."

"Do you really mean that?"

"I told you hunter, my parents would never judge my friends."

"Does the wicked witch of the west have a name?"

Glinda looked to her mom, she had never read the new story so she didn't know what her name was. "Mom, you read the new book, what's her name?"

"Elphaba," Glinda's mom said. "The wicked witch of the west's name is Elphaba."

"Elphaba," the girl repeated. "Then that is my name. It fits. Green people should stick together, so I shall be Elphaba. It's not quite American sounding, but I'm not from here. I come across the big water. It's a good name, don't you think?"

Glinda looked at her mom who was smiling. "I'll call you Elphaba," her mom said, "but you have to call me mom, Lara, or Mrs. Upland. Understand, Elphaba?"

The green girl nodded fiercely. "Of course, mum. What about you hummingbird?"

"I'll tell people who ask that your name is Elphaba, but I'll still call you hunter as long as you call me hummingbird."

"Deal."

"Now that that's settled, let's get you something to eat," Lara stood up and took Elphaba by the hand. She led her to the kitchen with Glinda following close behind. In the kitchen Lara let go of Elphaba's hand and walked over to the stove, where a pot was sitting. She stirred the stew that was in the pot and sniffed it. "Do you like beef stew?"

"I don't think I've ever had it."

"My mom's is simply to die for. It's the best."

Lara went to the cabinet and got out three bowls. She ladled out stew into each bowl and called Elphaba and Glinda over to her. They each took a bowl and walked over to the kitchen table. Glinda sat her bowl on the table and pulled out the chair for Elphaba. Elphaba sat down and Glinda sat in the chair next to her. They both dug into the stew.

Elphaba only looked up when her bowl was empty and then she said, "This is the best thing I've ever eaten, mum. May I have some more?"

Glinda and her mom looked at the girl, she ate every fast for someone so small. "Sure," Lara said and got her some more. "I do recommend that you try to eat a little slower or you'll give yourself a stomach ache."

"Okay," Elphaba said and this bowl she took longer to eat. Glinda finished her bowl and took it over to the sink. When Elphaba was done she brought her bowl over too, and handed it to Glinda who was in the process of washing hers. Glinda washed their bowls and dried them off. Then she looked at her mom who was poking around in her bowl of stew not eating.

"Mom, what's wrong aren't you hungry?"

Lara looked at her, then down to the stew and back to her. "Glinda, have you seen your father today?"

"No. Why? Haven't you?"

"No. He wasn't here when I woke up this morning, but I overslept so I assumed he had already left for work. But he didn't come home at his usual time so I called his work to see if he was working overtime, and his boss said that he didn't come in today. I'm worried about him."

Glinda furrowed her brows, thinking. It wasn't like her father to disappear. "When was the last time you saw him?"

Lara looked at her stew. She picked at it with her fork. "Last night."

"Did anything seem wrong?"

"No nothing."

"What's he look like? Where's he work? How does he get there from here?" Elphaba asked questions, because an idea was forming in her head.

"There's a picture of him on the table beside the couch in the living room," Glinda said. She went and got it and brought it back for Elphaba to see. The green girl reached out and took the picture into her hands. He was a well-built man, about thirty-three years old, with brown hair that was short cropped and blue eyes. He had a mole on the left side of his chin.

"He looks nice," Elphaba said.

"He is nice," Lara said. "I don't know how he gets to work from here. I've never gone with him to his work. If I knew how he got there, I'd check the way he goes to see if he's been in an accident."

"That's what I was going to suggest we do," Elphaba said.

Glinda looked around and then walked over to the garage door and looked out it. "His car is still here. Doesn't he normally drive to work?"

"Normally, but I checked the garage and it and his car are both empty and there's nothing unusual out there that I can see."

"Isn't the most unusual thing that his car is still here?" Glinda opened the door. She motioned for Elphaba to come into the garage with her. "Our eyes are better than mom's. Perhaps we can find something she didn't."

They walked out into the garage. Elphaba stared at the big blue van in the garage. "This is your dad's car?"

Glinda looked at it. "Yeah."

"It's nice. It's pretty." Elphaba went up to the van and looked around. She knelt down and looked under it. "There's something under here."

Glinda walked up and knelt beside the green girl. She reached under the van and pulled a set of car keys out. "These are dad's car keys."

"Doesn't he need them?"

"Why yes, he does. To drive this car. But it doesn't look like he took the car, so he doesn't need them." Glinda glanced around the garage. The place was clean. Almost too clean, usually her dad's tools were lying around and some half-finished bird house or cabinet or robot or something would be sitting on the work bench, but today everything was put away. There was nothing just lying in the garage, except the car keys. "Mom, it's too clean out here. Did dad finish the bird house he was working on?" "Not the last time I check with him. He said it still needed a roof," her mom called from the kitchen.

"Then why is it so clean in here? Dad never cleans when he is still working on a project."

"I don't know."

Elphaba walked around the garage looking at the walls and noticing the toolbox in the corner. She opened the bottom drawer and saw that it was empty except for a single screw driver. She closed that one and opened the one right above it and saw only a hammer in it. Closing that drawer she tried to open the one above it but couldn't get it. Glinda heard the rattling of the toolbox and walked over. She pulled on the drawer, when it wouldn't open for her she noticed that it had a keyhole. She checked the keys on the key ring in her hand but none of them fit. So she walked away from the toolbox and examined the rest of the room. Elphaba walked around and stopped in front of the garage door. "Big door," she commented.

"It's the door that opens so that the car can leave," Glinda told her and went back to examining the workbench. There was a small crack running along the top of the workbench. She ran her hand along the crack and sighed. Her dad would need a new workbench, assuming they could find him.

"Where does that lead," Elphaba asked.

Glinda turned to her and saw the green girl standing on an overturned box pointing at the ceiling. "What the ceiling? It doesn't lead anywhere,"

"No the door,"

Glinda walked over to see what she was talking about and looked to where she was pointing. There was a small square outline on the ceiling. "I don't know where that goes. How do you know that that is even a door, it could just be a line on the ceiling."

"It leads to the attic," Lara called from the kitchen.

"We have an attic?"

Lara walked out into the garage. "Yes, Glinda dear. Where do you think we hide stuff, like birthday presents? We can't hide them in the house you'd find them."

Glinda looked up at the square on the ceiling. "Do you think that for any reason, dad might have gone up there?"

Her mom walked over and looked at the square. "If he did, then I think the door would probably be open. I don't know if the door will open from the other side or not. I never had a reason to find out."

Elphaba jumped off her overturned box and walked around the garage, when she came back she glanced at the ceiling and said. "There's no way to reach the door."

Lara looked around. "Normally we have to use a ladder to get up there. Isn't the ladder in here somewhere?"

Elphaba shook her head. "No ladder."

"Then there isn't a way to get up there. If the ladder is gone, Hugh couldn't have gotten up there."

Elphaba yawned and glanced around the garage once more. "He not here."

"I know that. He left his keys. They were under the van," Glinda said. She looked at the green girl. Elphaba yawned again. "Are you tired, hunter?"

"Yes, hummingbird," Elphaba yawned.

"It is getting kind of late," Lara said. "It's probably best if you two head on up to your room and get some sleep."

"My room," Elphaba asked yawing.

"No little hunter. My room. You don't have a room, yet. We'll straighten that out tomorrow."

Glinda led the little green girl up to her room and pointed to her bed. "You can sleep in the bed with me."

Glinda walked over to the bed, pulled the cover off and laid down on it. She motioned for the little green girl to come lay on the bed too. Elphaba looked around, as if for somewhere else to lay and upon finding none, walked over and pulled herself into the bed with Glinda. "Good night, hummingbird."

"Good night hunter."


	4. To the Mall

Glinda awoke the next morning and smiled. The little green girl snuggled closer to her. She looked at the little girl in her arms and thought that it would be mean to wake her, when she was sleeping so peacefully. But Glinda couldn't get out of bed without waking the girl. Glinda shook the green girl's shoulder gently. "Hunter, sleepyhead, wake up." The little one nuzzled closer to the blonde. "Come on, little one. Wakey, wakey. It's time to get up."

The little one shook her head. "No wakey. Me sleepy."

Glinda smiled, either the girl wasn't as asleep as she was pretending to be or she talked in her sleep. "Wake up. I need to get dressed. Get up you. You can sleep all you want to after you let me out of this bed."

"No." The green one snuggled closer to Glinda. "I don't want hummingbird to go."

Glinda shook her head. The little one was going to be difficult. This might not be as easy as she thought it would. She wrapped her arms around the little green one and lifted her up. Then she placed her on the other side of the bed. "Sorry, hunter, but I have homework that is due tomorrow and I only have today to do it."

"You sleepy, wif me."

"Hunter. I have to do work."

"Hummingbird sleep."

"Hunter. I slept all night, and so did you. It's time for one of us to wake up and if it's not going to be you it has to be me." Glinda glared at the little green girl.

The little one sat up on the bed. Her black hair stuck out at odd angles and Glinda giggled. "What funny, hummingbird?"

Glinda sat on the edge of the bed and smoothed the little girl's unruly hair. "You are hunter."

"How am I funny?"

"Your hair, hunter. It was sticking up at funny angles." Elphaba reached up and brushed her hair down with her hands. She glanced at Glinda who smiled. "It looks good now."

Elphaba stretched and yawned. "Why are we awake?"

"I told you hunter, I have homework."

"What's that?"

"Torture. It's school work that we didn't have time to do in class so I have to do it here."

"Can I help?"

Glinda stood up and walked over to her dresser. "I don't know Hunter. You've never been to school before. The work might be too difficult for you." She opened her drawer and looked through her shirts. She picked out one that had a little red phoenix. "But if you really want to try you are going to have to get up and get dressed."

Elphaba crawled to the edge of the bed and swung her legs over the side. She stood up smoothening out the shirt she was still wearing from the day before. "Am I not already dressed?"

Glinda looked at the girl. "Well normally people wear more than just a shirt."

Elphaba walked over to the dresser. She looked at the clothes in the drawer that Glinda had open. She stuck her hand in and pulled a shirt out. It was black with a jack-o'-lantern on it. She held it up in front of her. Glinda looked and smiled. Elphaba put the shirt on top of the dresser and Glinda closed the drawer and opened the drawer that was one lower. Elphaba reached in and pulled a pair of pants out. She held them up. "I think they won't fit me."

Glinda looked at the pants in the girl's hands. She took them from her and looked at the tag. Size 14/16. "These are my pants, these are all my pants. I don't think that I have any pants that would fit you, but I do have a skirt we can make fit you." Glinda walked over to the closet and pulled a skirt off a hanger. She brought it over to the little green girl. She held it up and sighed. "It's going to be way too big. You don't have shoes either."

Elphaba looked down and wiggled her toes. "Shoes? Like you wear? No. A lady person once gave me flippy-floppy shoes, but that was a while ago and the fell apart."

"I know. Mom," Glinda called out.

Lara walked into the room a minute later. "It's about time you girls got up. What is it?"

"Hunter needs clothes, mine are too big. She has no shoes," Glinda said.

"Hummingbird is concerned about me. She won't let me look at her homework, until I get dressed but her pants are too big for me and so is her skirt," Elphaba said whining slightly.

Lara looked at them. "One minute," she said. She left the room and when she came back she had a small pile of laundry in her hands. She dumped it on Glinda's bed and pulled out the pants that Elphaba had been wearing when she showed up on Glinda's back. "I washed the clothes you were wearing yesterday."

Elphaba took the pants from her and the shirt from the top of the dresser and changed into them. The shirt was just a little too big for her, but not so much so as to be uncomfortable. "I like it," she said.

Glinda looked at the girl. She was smiling and she looked pretty good in the clothes, but her pants were practically just rags. "Mom can we go get her some clothes. We gave all of my too small clothes away."

"Well, your father was wanting to see you."

"Dad is home?"

"Yes, sweetie. He came home really late last night. He said that he had ran into his brother, your uncle, and got shanghaied into going with him on some crazy blind date. He never could tell his brother no. He wants to see you. He's in the kitchen making breakfast." Glinda headed to her door but her mom stopped her. "He doesn't know about Elphaba yet. It was so late when he came home, and I was just glad he wasn't hurt. I forgot to tell him."

"Well then come on hunter. We're going to go see my dad."

Elphaba followed Glinda and her mom to the kitchen. She looked at the man standing in front of the stove. He looked just like the picture Glinda had shown her last night. "Hello."

"Good morning," her dad said not turning around.

"Dad what are you cooking," Glinda asked.

"Bacon and pancakes."

"Sounds delicious," Glinda said.

Glinda's dad flipped the pancake in the pan, and pointed to the plates beside him, one full with bacon and one stacked with pancakes. "Can you take them over to the table?"

Glinda walked over and picked up the plate of bacon. She carried it to the table and set in the middle. Then she brought the plate of pancakes over. Her dad brought the finished pancake over and put it on top of the stack. Lara got plates out of the cabinet and set four places at the table.

Glinda's dad looked at the table and asked, "Why are we setting four places?"

"Glinda has a friend," Lara stated.

"Have I met this friend?"

Elphaba stepped forward, "Good morning, Mr. Glinda's dad."

Glinda and her mom stood a step behind Elphaba. "Dad, this is my friend Elphaba."

"Good morning, Elphaba," Hugh said. "I don't want to risk sounding rude, but her skin is green right? It's a nice color, I just want to make sure I am not seeing things. I never know after being out with my brother."

"My skin is nice color," Elphaba asked.

"Yes. It is. Green is a wonderful color. Do you like bacon?" Hugh asked.

Elphaba walked over to the table. She looked at the plates in the middle. "I've never eaten these things before. Hummingbird are they good?" She looked at Glinda.

Glinda walked over to the table. "Honestly hunter what am I going to do with you. What have you eaten before?"

"I don't know," Elphaba said honestly.

"How long ago did you come to America?"

"Long time."

"How long?"

"Years, I think. I can't remember."

Glinda pulled out a chair for Elphaba and motioned for her to sit. "I'm going to make sure you eat, every day. Three meals a day. You have too. It's the law."

Hugh chuckled. "That's not a law, Glin sweetie."

"It should be." Glinda sat down in the chair beside Elphaba. "Our world would be so much better if it were law that everyone has to eat at least two meals a day."

"Some people just can't afford it, Glin."

"Then that would have to change. It shouldn't be legal for the government to allow people to be so poor that they can't afford to eat. If I was in charge of the government that would be the first thing I change."

"Eat your breakfast," Lara said putting a pancake on her plate.

Glinda picked up her fork and stabbed the pancake. "Hunter eat."

Elphaba looked at the bacon and pancakes and said, "How eat bacon with fork?"

Lara looked at the little green girl who was crushing the crispy bacon with her fork trying to pick it up. "Bacon is finger food."

"Finger food? My fingers can eat?"

Glinda giggled. "No silly hunter, finger food means you pick it up with your hands to eat it."

"Oh." Elphaba picked up the bacon and put it in her mouth. She ate the bacon. "Bacon good."

"Try the pancakes."

Elphaba used her fork to break the pancake into pieces and eat it. "Panfake wozeful," she mumbled.

Everyone at the table giggled. Glinda said, "Hunter don't talk with your mouth full."

Elphaba nodded and swallowed her food before speaking again. "Pancake wonderful."

Hugh put down his fork after finishing off his pancakes and bacon. "So Elphaba, where are you from?"

Glinda and her mom stopped eating and looked up. Elphaba looked at her plate then at Hugh. "Across the big water, originally. Hummingbird found me in town."

"In town?"

"Yesterday."

"Dad, let me explain." Glinda rubbed her face and took a deep breath. "I was in a bad part of town," she held her hand up, to keep him from interrupting in his fatherly anger, "because I took a wrong turn." She quickly explained about the man chasing her and the alley and hiding behind the girl. She stopped talking to catch her breath.

"Do you need a paper bag? Or do you think you've got enough breath in your head?" Her dad said.

"Jeez, dad. I'm trying to explain. She saved my life. I learned about her too, when we weren't running anymore."

"Such as? You're okay though aren't you? You didn't get hurt?" Hugh looked from his daughter to the green girl, wondering just who this mysterious green kid was.

"Well, how she got here. From what I understand of the answers she gave me, she came over on a boat some years ago with her mother, but hasn't seen her mother since and can't remember who left who or if they just got separated."

Her father just nodded.

"And what happened since she got separated from her mom, or at least part of what happened. In her experiences, people didn't like her because of the way she looked. No one would help her, except for one woman who gave her flip-flops and a restaurant owner. She started working for the restaurant owner, in exchange for scraps of food she swept around the outside of the restaurant. She lived in the alley beside the restaurant and that's where I found her. She saved my life. I owe her."

"So let me get this straight. She has no home."

"Correct, mostly."

"Mostly?"

That's when Lara spoke up. "Because she saved Glinda's life I thought it would be good manners to take her off of the street. Take her in, show her that not every one judges people by the color of their skin. Give her some food, give her a chance at living an actual life. Some things she wouldn't get on the street."

"So. She saved your life, Glin? This tiny girl?"

Glinda's face went red, when he said it like that it made her seem weak. "She's braver than she looks," Glinda said.

"Hugh, please. She's been through so much, and she's just a child. Doesn't she deserve the chance at even just a semi-normal life?"

Elphaba was just sitting there the whole time. Every once in a while she would sneak another piece of bacon off the plate and eat it. When she finally spoke it was only to say, very sadly, "There's no more bacon."

Everyone at the table looked at her. "Hunter, do you want to stay here?" Glinda asked.

"She's going to need schooling," Hugh said.

"Hummingbird want hunter stay?" Elphaba asked.

"Yes. I want you to stay," Glinda said.

"Then hunter wants to stay. It would make hummingbird happy."

"Then she stays. It's fine with me," Hugh said.

Glinda stood up excitedly and ran around the table to give her dad a hug. "You won't regret this. I promise." Glinda glanced at Elphaba who was still sad about the bacon being gone. "My clothes are too big for her though. She needs new ones, can we go get her some?"

Lara cleared the table and handed Hugh his keys. "Let's go shopping. Mama needs a new book."

"She can't, remember no shirt, no shoes, no service," Hugh said.

Glinda ran up to her room and grabbed a pair of flip-flops out of her closet. She brought them down to the kitchen and slipped them onto Elphaba's feet. "I know they're too big, but you can't go into stores if you aren't wearing shoes. It's against the rules."

They walked out to the garage and Hugh unlocked the car. Glinda helped Elphaba into the car and helped her buckled the seat belt. Glinda and Lara got into the car. They drove into the city and passed many tall buildings before they arrived at the parking lot of the mall. When they had parked the car and everyone got out Elphaba stared at the building in shock.

"It's the biggest store I've ever seen," the green girl said.

"It's not a store," Glinda said. "It's a mall."

"What's the difference?"

Glinda looked at the building. "Malls have a bunch of stores in them."

They walked into the mall. Elphaba looked around with wonder in her eyes. This place was huge and there were a lot of stores and people. Elphaba saw the people and grabbed Glinda's arm. "People," she whispered.

"Yes hunter. People. They tend to spend time in the mall, spending more money than they should. On things they don't really need. But most of the people in the mall can afford that. Some just come to look," Glinda said. She walked beside Elphaba and smiled pointing out the different stores and explaining what was sold in each. "Belk, JCPenny, Macy's and Sears all sell a lot of the same things. Most of the other stores do seem to specialize a little. Some specialize in toys, there's a pet shop on the third floor and a candy store on the second."

"Candy? Pets? Do you have any pets?"

"Uh no. I don't," Glinda said.

"No. You are not getting a pet. If you behave we'll get candy, but no pets," Lara said.

Elphaba stopped in front of a store and pointed at a dress in the window. "I like that."

Glinda looked at the dress. Her mom looked too and smiled. "We'll go in here and look at what other clothes they have, maybe we'll find more stuff you like. I think that dress might be too big for you, but they may have a smaller size."

They went into the store and were greeted almost immediately by a sales associate. "Welcome to our store. My name is Lina and I am here to assist you in all your shopping needs today."

"Thank you, Lina," Hugh said. "Today we are looking for clothes for the little one."

Elphaba hid behind Glinda.

"Aw she's shy. That's adorable. Come on out let me see you."

Glinda tugged Elphaba's arm gently. "Come on out, hunter. If you let the nice lady help you find clothes, I'll take you to the food court and we'll get whatever you want to eat."

"Will there be more bacon?"

"I'm sure there will be bacon somewhere."

"Okay." Elphaba peered shyly out from behind Glinda and then stepped out.

"You need all the fashion help you can get," Lina said. "Come with me and we'll get you lots of things that you will look nice in."

"I like that dress in the window," Elphaba said pointing.

"I'm sure we can find you one like it."

Lina lead Elphaba and Glinda to the children's section and helped Elphaba pick out clothes.

Elphaba picked through the colors and held up a blue t-shirt. "This color?"

Glinda nodded and said, "If you like it."

Elphaba picked out clothes that were red, blue, dark purple and black. Glinda held a pink shirt in front of the green girl. She looked at Lina and said, "What do you think? Pink goes good with green, doesn't it?"

Elphaba looked at it and huffed, "I no wear pink."

Glinda put the shirt back. "Suit yourself, but you'd look good in it."

Lina looked through the clothes and found a child sized dress like the one in the window. It was a simple navy blue dress that came to Elphaba's knees in the smallest size and was sleeveless, but with shoulders instead of spaghetti straps. "You like this dress?"

Elphaba looked at it. "Yeah. I love it."

Glinda found her mom and brought her over to them. "We found clothes," she said pointing at the stack of clothes that the three of them had pick out for Elphaba.

"So I see."

Glinda looked at her mom, then to Lina. "She needs shoes too."

Lara gathered up the stack of clothes and followed the three of them to the shoe section in the corner of the store. Elphaba picked out two pairs of shoes. A pair of black tennis shoes and a pair of black flats, to go with her dress. Lina helped make sure she picked out the right size.

"We done now? We go get bacon?" Elphaba asked.

"Can we go to the food court, momsie?" Glinda asked.

"We have to pay for this stuff first. Then she can change into her new tennis shoes and you can take her to the food court. Your dad went to the hobby shop, so he'll be a while. I need to go the bookstore. You can find me there when you're done in the food court. That's where I told your dad I would be."

They went to the front and Lina rang up the sale. Glinda helped Elphaba change into her new socks and shoes. Lara led the girls to the food court. She gave Glinda some money and told them to be good, then headed off to the book store.

Glinda looked at the money and smiled. "I'm sure we can get you a lot of bacon for this. If you still want bacon."

She grabbed Elphaba's hand and turned to lead her through one of the lines. She walked up to one of the food place and looked at the sign.

"Good morning, Ms. Upland. Who's your lovely emerald companion?"

Glinda jumped when she heard the voice. She turned to see if it was who she thought it was. The boy standing in front of them was tan skinned and he smiled at her. His skin was covered with little blue diamonds.

"Fiyero," Glinda gasped. She hadn't expected to see anyone from school, much less the boy she had a crush on.


	5. Diamond Boy

"Aren't you going to introduce me to the little emerald companion of yours?" Fiyero asked.

Glinda glanced at Elphaba who was staring at the boy. She felt herself going red in the face. "Don't stare, it's rude," she told Elphaba. "Her name is Elphaba," Glinda said looking back at Fiyero.

"Elphaba, that's a nice name." He knelt down and looked Elphaba in the eyes. She stared back not blinking. "She may look like a little kid, but she's the same age as us."

Glinda looked at Elphaba and Fiyero. "How can you tell?"

"My great-great grandmother was a medicine woman. She lived before her tribe began counting how many years old a person was in any kind of formal way. She knew that some remedies for illnesses didn't work on people under a certain age or over a certain age, so she learned how to tell age by looking at people's eyes and facial structure. She taught her daughter, who taught her daughter, who taught her daughter, who taught me. I never thought I would actually use it though. Did you really not know how old she was?"

"I really didn't. I thought she was ten. So she's thirteen like us. Hunter, did you know how old you are."

Elphaba shook her head. "Diamond boy thinks I'm an emerald. I like him."

Fiyero smiled. "She grew up on the streets didn't she?"

"Yeah. I met her in an alley, and she saved my life. So I brought her home and now she lives with me in my house." Glinda smiled stupidly.

"You are a good person." He smiled at Elphaba and asked her, "Do you like living with Glinda?"

"She's nice. She bought me clothes and is going to buy me food." Elphaba tugged on Glinda's arm. "Hummingbird, I want bacon. You promised me bacon."

Glinda looked at Elphaba. "Alright, I'll go find the bacon for you. Do you want to stay with 'diamond boy' while I go find it?" She looked at Fiyero and whispered, "Will you watch her? She may be our age but she sure doesn't act like it."

"Yeah, I'll look after the little emerald." He took Elphaba's hand. "Come on little emerald one. Sit with me and tell me about yourself."

Glinda walked around the food court looking at the menus, trying to figure out which place would be serving bacon. She found one and bought some bacon for Elphaba. When she came back to the table where Fiyero and Elphaba were now sitting, they were laughing.

She smiled and sat down at the table. Pulling a Styrofoam container out of the bag she said, "There's only one place in the whole food court that will sell just bacon." She handed the container to Elphaba, who took it eagerly. "What were you two laughing about?"

Fiyero smiled. "She's smart for someone who lived on the street. She told me this wonderful joke she heard. It was a little corny though."

"Corny?"

"Perfect for a little kid. What is a cow's favorite game?"

"I don't know."

"Moosical chairs."

Glinda giggled.

"See I told you it was wonderful, albeit quite corny. Like the jokes on the back of those milk cartons we had in elementary school."

"Yeah. I wonder if perhaps that is where she heard it. From someone with one of those milk cartons."

Fiyero looked from Glinda to Elphaba and back. "She's quite the strange girl. Does she go to school?"

"No, but she needs to."

"Here's an idea. She's smart. If we can get her to learn by next week what she needs to know to pass the placement tests, do you think we could convince your parents to say that she was home schooled? Perhaps if we can, then she could come to our school. We could help her and she would learn so much."

"She can't read or write. Do you think we could teach her that in a week?"

"I have confidence in this girl."

Glinda looked at Elphaba who had just finished her bacon. "Hunter, do you want to learn how to read and write?"

"If I do can I help you with your homework?"

"Yeah. If you let me and Fiyero-"

"Fiyero and I," Fiyero said, "If we are going to teach her, it might as well be with proper grammar."

"I'm pretty sure that it's supposed to be Fiyero and me. Like if you let Fiyero or you let me it makes sense that way, but if you let I doesn't make sense. It doesn't sound good. Always go with what sounds good," Glinda said, "If you let Fiyero and me teach you how to read and write and do math, the things you need to know to pass the tests to get into school. I'll let you help me with my homework."

"We need to go to the bookstore now."

Glinda looked at Elphaba and smiled. "Yeah, how about you come with us Fiyero."

Fiyero stood up and stretched. "Sure, my mom won't be here to pick me up for a while."

Glinda and Elphaba stood up and walked with Fiyero to the bookstore. Fiyero looked around and smiled. Glinda looked at him and smiled too. "I bet we could find books that would help us teach her to read and write quickly."

Fiyero walked up to a woman who was stacking books on a shelf. "Excuse me, madam, do you work here?"

The woman turned to Fiyero. "Yes, I do. You're quite the charming boy, what can I help you with?"

"My friend and I are going to try to teach her little sister to read and write. Can you recommend any books that might help us with that?"

"It takes a lot to teach a child to read. Are you sure you're up for it?"

"We have to do this, she can't get into school if she can't read."

The woman looked up and saw Glinda holding a picture book in front of Elphaba. "Is that your friend and her sister?"

"Yes, madam. The little one needs to learn how to read. She's adopted and never actually went to school. Please, madam, if you can show us where to find what we need to teach her."

"I'll show you what we have, but I don't know how much it will help you. Though if she hangs out in libraries and book stores long enough she'll get the hang of it."

Fiyero waved to Glinda who handed the picture book to Elphaba and took her hand. "Yeah, Fiyero. Is she going to show us where the books are?"

"Your name," Elphaba said. "The little badge on your shirt. It has your name. What does it say?"

The woman knelt down in front of Elphaba and pointed at the name tag. "Do you know letters?"

"Yeah, I know my alphabets, A,B,C,D,E,F,G,H,I,J,K,L,M,N,O,P,Q,R,S,T,U,V,W,X,Y, Z."

"Then, can you put the letters on my tag together?"

"I don't know what the letters look like, but I can spell things. Dog, d-o-g. Pizza, p-i-z-z-a. Love, l-o-v-e."

"Would you understand things if you read them?"

"Probably. I'm not slow, I just was never taught to recognize letters."

The woman pointed at the letters on her name tag again. "The first letter is M."

"M is pointy, like the mountain." Elphaba held up the book in her hand.

"It's an alphabet book that may be all she needs. Alphabet books, so she can learn to recognize letters and such. If she already knows plenty of words, all she needs is to see the letters that make them up and learn their shapes. The second letter is A."

"It's little."

"Yes. That's because big letters only come at the beginning of proper nouns and sentences. The third letter is a little R and the fourth is a little I, the last letter is another A. Can you tell me what my name is?"

"M-a-r-i-a. Ma-ri-a. Maria. Your name is Maria."

"Yes," the woman smiled. "I think she just needs to learn the shapes of the letters, and then she'll do well."

"Can you show us where more alphabet books are? Easy reading books for little children, like Dr. Seuss or The Very Hungry Caterpillar."

"Yeah." Maria stood up and led them to the children's books. "You'll find them here. Simple books then she can work her way up."

"Thank you."

"You're very welcome." Maria walked away.

Glinda and Fiyero looked through the shelves of the children's books. They glanced at the titles and pulled about twenty different books off the shelves.

"These books that say learn to read look promising," Glinda said.

"They do, but are they promising too much?" Fiyero asked.

"Perhaps, but if they work, does it matter?" Glinda asked in return.

Fiyero glanced at the clock hanging on the wall and sighed. "My mom will be here in like five minutes. I have to go. I'll see about coming over to your house later and helping you with that homework and teaching her to read."

"Okay. Sounds like a plan," Glinda said.

"Goodbye diamond boy," Elphaba said.

"Goodbye, emerald one," Fiyero said and he walked away.

Glinda gathered up the books she chose and told Elphaba to follow her. "We're going to go find my mom. Then we'll buy these books and you'll be reading in no time. Sound good to you? Mom said if we behaved, then we would get candy. We've been really good. We should get lots of candy for this."

Elphaba and Glinda walked through the bookstore looking for Glinda's mom. When they found her she was sitting in one of the aisles reading a book.

"Mom, I found books," Glinda said.

Lara looked up from the book she was reading. "So did I. Your dad did too, he got his and took them and the clothes we bought to the car. He should be back soon. What kind of books did you find?"

"Reading, learning, for hunter," Glinda said.

"I thought she couldn't read."

"That's why I got these books. Fiyero and I are going to teach hunter to read, so that she can go to school."

"Fiyero and you? Who is Fiyero?"

Glinda looked at her mother, wondering how she could forget someone like Fiyero.

"He's the diamond boy," Elphaba said. "He's got little blue diamonds everywhere."

"Oh him. I remember him. He's a really charming boy, quite the little gentleman. Where'd you find him today?"

"The food court. He told me that, based on something his mom taught him, Elphaba is thirteen, just like I am."

"You have friends your own age, I can live happily now. Are you buying the books or am I?"

"Are you still going to get us candy? I'm not sure if I have enough for the books."

Lara stood up and gathered the books she wanted. "Let's go to the checkout and figure out who is buying those books."

They went to the checkout and Glinda handed the guy at the counter the books she wanted to get.

"Interesting selection," the guy at the counter said as he was ringing them up. "Do you like Dr. Seuss?"

Glinda nodded. "I do like his books but these aren't for me. They're for my little sister."

"Wonderful. I think it's nice when siblings buy things for each other. It's restores a little bit of my faith in humanity. That'll be forty-three dollars and ninety-six cents."

Lara handed her books to the man too. "Please ring these up too." She looked at Glinda and said, "I know you don't have that much, I only gave you forty dollars and you bought food at the food court, didn't you?"

Glinda nodded. "Yes."

When the order was completely rung up and paid for they waited for Hugh to return and then went to the candy store. Glinda and Elphaba bought as much candy as they could for the money Glinda had left. They were very happy when they left the mall and headed home.


	6. Philosophy

Glinda sat in her living room staring at the paper of questions she was supposed to be answering. She stared at it and grew increasingly frustrated with it. The paper listed sixty-five questions that she needed to answer. It didn't seem to Glinda that most of the questions had any answers at all. She picked up her pencil but then put it down again, unsure of how to write the answers she thought were right.

Elphaba came running in with a little camcorder. "Lookie what I found."

Glinda looked up. She smiled. "Hunter, you're a genius."

Elphaba stopped running. "I am?"

"Yes. I know how you are going to help me with this homework."

"How?" Elphaba smiled. She’d loved helping Glinda with her homework, what few chances she’d gotten to do that so far.

"We're going to videotape the answers instead of writing them."

"How's that work?" Elphaba was confused, and rightfully so. She’d never heard the term ‘videotape’ before.

"That camera in your hand can record video straight to my computer. I can set it up and we can discuss the answers to the questions."

"But, isn't that not what we're supposed to be doing? Aren't you supposed to write them?" Some things really confused Elphaba, and the way Glinda explained things, was most of them.

"I am but this will work just as well." Glinda took the camera and set it up with her laptop. "I need you to pick up my homework and stand and move where I tell you so I can make sure we'll be seen in the video."

Elphaba did as she was told and moved where she was told. Then Glinda clicked to record and walked over to her.

"I'm Glinda and this is Elphaba and today we're going to discuss philosophical questions. Let's begin. The first question. Is it worse to fail at something or never attempt it in the first place?"

Elphaba smiled sweetly for the camera. "I think that it is worse to never attempt something in the first place."

"So do I, but why. That's the whole point of philosophy is not what we think but why."

"Okay, so why do I think that? I think that because if you fail at something, then at least you learned from the experience. But if you never try, then how are you ever going to learn anything? If you never try, how are you to know that you weren't going to actually succeed at what you were going to do?" Elphaba glanced at Glinda, seemingly searching for if her answer was good enough.

Glinda nodded slightly. "I believe that not trying is worse than failing, because if no one ever tried nothing would ever get done. Thomas Edison failed a thousand times before the light bulb was actually created."

"Excellent point. Shall we move on to the next question-” Elphaba glanced at the paper “-there seems to be a lot of them?"

"Yes.” Glinda nodded. “Question two: If you could choose just one thing to change about the world, what would it be?"

"I would make sure that every kid has a family. I know what it's like to not have a family, and it's awful. No one should ever have to be without a family."

"I would make it illegal for the governments of the world to allow someone to be so poor that they can't afford food to eat. It's horrible that the government cares more about the army and fighting, than it does making sure that each and every citizen has food to eat."

"Inspiring. Truly inspiring. Onto the next question." Elphaba smiled, she was really enjoying herself.

"Number three. To what extent do you shape your own destiny, and how much is down to fate?"

"What is destiny?" Confusing word, especially for Elphaba who had never heard it before.

"We're supposed to be answering questions, not asking them."

"I can't answer that question. I don't know what destiny is."

"I know that I shape my own destiny quite a lot. I am destined for great things, but because I choose to be not because that what the fates decide. Destiny is what you make it, if you believe you are destined for great things and work to make it true then you'll do great in life. But if you don't work to make your destiny a reality then you may as well never have believed it to be true in the first place."

"What is destiny?"

"The next question then. Question four: Should people care more about doing the right thing, or doing things right?"

"What's the difference? I want to help people. I care about doing the right thing. Some people only care about doing things the right way, but sometimes there isn't a right way to do the right thing. Sometimes you just have to do the right thing even knowing that it isn't always the right way to do it."

"I believe that if everyone cared about doing things the right way then everyone would do good things, no matter what. There would be no war, no criminals. If people did everything the right way, we wouldn't need to make a choice between the 'right' and 'wrong' thing."

"I see your point, but if people only did the right thing it wouldn't matter what way they were doing it as long as they got it done."

"Sure, that brings us to the next question. Who defines good and evil?"

"Do you want an opinion or the truth?"

"What does it matter? This is philosophy. It's what you think it is."

"In a perfect world each and every person decides what is right and wrong and we all agree on it. In reality, though people are encouraged to do the right thing, it's the government that decides what is right. If someone does something that is the right thing, but the government has said it's wrong they get in trouble for it."

"I don't know how true that really is. The government always encourages the people to do the right thing. So I guess it's true that they would be the ones to decide what is right, what is good."

"But deciding between good and evil is a job held by the media. The media tells people what to think and people go along with it. They decide what is evil based on what the media tells them."

"Okay so going along with all this is the next question what is-"

A knock on the door interrupted Glinda.

"Elphaba go see who that is."

Elphaba stood up and walked over to the door. She opened it and smiled. "Diamond boy," she said with a grin.

"Diamond boy? Oh come on in," Glinda called. She smiled at the camera. "We have a special guest with us now."

Elphaba brought Fiyero over to Glinda. "Diamond boy is here to help," Elphaba said.

"That I am, what exactly are you doing?" Fiyero asked.

"Fiyero is here to help us discuss philosophy questions." Glinda leaned over and whispered in Fiyero's ear. "I couldn't think of the right way to word the answers on paper so when Elphaba found the camcorder I decided it would be easier to video tape me saying the answers, and Elphaba wanted to help so now we're discussing them."

"So what question are we discussing now?"

"I was getting to that when you showed up. The next question. What is the truth?"

"The truth? About something, or in general?" Fiyero asked.

"In general."

"The truth," Elphaba said, "isn't a matter of facts, or logic. There is a saying, if you tell yourself something long enough, you start to believe it is true."

"But just because you believe it doesn't make it true," Glinda said.

"The truth is a matter of what people agree on. If enough people believe a lie it becomes the truth, no matter what the facts are," Fiyero said.

"None of that makes any sense," Glinda said.

"It's the truth. No matter what anyone else says. The truth is only what people believe, if they believe the lies then the lies are truth. History has taught us that well enough. 'General Custer was a brave man whose troops were massacred by the Indian savages'. Remember that? We were 'taught' that in history class. 'The British were tyrants.' That was a lie. The British were trying to keep their colonies in line, the colonists were rabble rousers. They caused nothing but trouble for the British, their founders and rightful rulers," Fiyero said, his voice gaining in volume a little.

"Look here. The truth is the truth no matter what. A lie can never be the truth," Glinda said.

"Does it matter if the lie is true or not? If people believe it is strongly enough they will be willing to fight and die for it and that's the truth," Elphaba said sharply.

"What in god's name are you children fighting about in here?" Lara asked from the kitchen door. "Hello, Fiyero."

"Hello, Mrs. Upland. We weren't fighting. Were we?"

Glinda and Elphaba looked at each other. "We weren't fighting, mom," Glinda said.

"Yeah," Elphaba agreed.

"Well then what would you call it?"

"Heated debate over what the truth is," Glinda says.

"Were we yelling?" Fiyero asked.

"No, but you were talking very loudly."

"Sorry, mum," Elphaba said. "We'll try to keep our voices down."

"We only have two more questions," Glinda said.

"Only two, but it looks like so many," Elphaba said.

"That's because he left us room to write, or at least start our answers."

"Oh. So what is the next question?"

Fiyero picked up the paper and read off it, "Question seven. If money cannot buy happiness, can you ever be truly happy with no money?"

"No," Glinda and Elphaba said in unison.

"Okay," Fiyero said, surprised by the conviction in their voices. "Why not?"

"Because," Elphaba said. "I grew up without money. It's awful, you can't buy anything, and people are cruel. You can't just get food, or clothes. Those things aren't free. Whoever said the best things in life are free clearly never had to go without food or clothes, because they couldn't afford to buy them. If they had they'd realize that while things such as family and friends are free, you can't enjoy them if you are perpetually hungry and worrying that your clothes aren't going to survive the day."

"You can't be happy if you can't pay for stuff, like housing, food and other things like that. Things that are necessary in life. You can be happy with very little money, but not with absolutely no money whatsoever," Glinda said.

"Sounds like you've thought about this before," Fiyero said.

"I have," Glinda said.

"It was a fact of my life. I don't have to think about it."

"Well there's the matter of the last question," Glinda said.

"Okay, let's do it," Fiyero said.

"Alright, the last question is: What will happen at the end of the world?"

"I believe that all life will perish and the world will start anew. However, perhaps the end of the world isn't all it's cracked up to be and the world exists only in the minds of each and every individual and when we die our world ends with us, while someone else's suffers, if we're lucky enough to mattered in someone else's," Fiyero said.

"Some say the world will end in fire. Some say in ice. From what I've tasted of desire I hold with those who favor fire. But if it had to perish twice, I think I know enough of hate, to say that for destruction ice is also great, and would suffice," Elphaba said.

"Okay, Fiyero that was a disturbingly sad image to think of and Elphaba, where did you learn that poem?"

"At the coffee shop across the street from the restaurant. People would gather there on weekends and holidays to read poems that they liked, whether they wrote them or not."

"Amazing. You remember them?"

"Only the ones I liked. I liked a lot of them. That one and many more were by some famous poet, Robert something."

"Frost. Robert Frost. And we're done for today. Thanks for watching." Glinda got up and cut the camera off.


	7. Poetry

"So the emerald one likes poetry. I think that might actually help us to teach her to read." Fiyero stood up and walked over to the kitchen door. "Mrs. Upland, you like to read don't you?"

Lara looked up from the stove. "I do. I think most anyone likes to read, they just need to find the right things to read."

"Do you have any books of poetry?"

"How charming, do you like poetry?"

"I do, and so does the emerald one."

"Ah, I see, does she know any poems? If she does then I think I know what you are going to try to do."

"She knows a few by Robert Frost."

"I have the perfect book." Lara got up and walked out of the kitchen. She walked past him and went into the hallway and grabbed a book off the shelf. "This one," she said and handed it to him. "Snowy Woods and other poems by Robert Frost."

"Thanks, this will be really helpful." He walked over to Elphaba and showed her the book. "This is a book of poetry by Robert Frost. I have an idea about what will help teach you how to read. You already know some of the poems. So seeing them written will help you learn to read words and sentences. And wanting to learn the other poems will give you an incentive to read."

Elphaba looked at the book. She took it from Fiyero's hands. "Poems?"

"Songs with no music, poetry speaks to people," Lara said from the doorway.

"I like poems," Elphaba said.

"Which one is your favorite?" Fiyero asked.

"There are so many that I've never heard. It would be irresponsible of me to pick a favorite when I haven't heard many."

"Of the ones you have heard, which do you like."

"Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, and sorry I could not travel both and be one traveler, long I stood and looked down one as far as I could to where it bent in the undergrowth; Then took the other, as just as fair, and having perhaps the better claim because it was grassy and wanted wear, though as for that the passing there had worn them really about the same, and both that morning equally lay in leaves no step had trodden black. Oh, I kept the first for another day! Yet knowing how way leads on to way I doubted if I should ever come back. I shall be telling this with a sigh, somewhere ages and ages hence: Two roads diverged in a wood, and I, I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference."

"You have an excellent memory, to have these poems memorized already."

"Thank you."

"Okay let me see the book." Elphaba gave the book to Fiyero and he found the page in it with that poem on it. "Okay this is the poem you like so much." He showed her the page.

She looked at it, but she couldn't read the words. "I can't read. You know that."

"I do and this is how you're going to learn. You know the words of the poem, now you see them written. Once you can read this poem we'll try one you've never seen before."

"Okay, but how is this going to work."

"One line at a time." Fiyero pointed at the page and said, "We'll start with the title."

"I don't know the title. I don't know the title of any poems."

"The Road Not Taken," Fiyero said. "That's the title of this poem."

"The Road Not Taken," Elphaba repeated and looked at the page. She squinted at the words and then said, "They all look like blurry squiggles to me."

Glinda jumped up and ran over to her mom. She whispered something in her ear and her mom left the room. A minute later she was back with a pair of reading glasses. Glinda took them and brought them over to Elphaba. "Try these."

Elphaba put the glasses on and smiled. "I can see the little words now. This first word is the, isn't it?"

"Yes, what about this one?" Glinda asked pointing at a word further down the page.

"That's also the, isn't it, but with a little t?"

"Yes, you're pretty good."

"I looked through the alphabet book while singing the alphabet song, so I'm pretty sure I know what the letters look like."

"Then what is this word?" Glinda said pointing to another word down the page.

"Trodden?"

"Yes. By Jove I think she may have this. Can you read the whole poem?"

"Two roads diverged in a yellow wood," Elphaba read. "That's right. Right, I know the poem, but I can read the words too."

"Keep going then."

"And sorry I could not travel both. And be one traveler, long I stood. And looked down one as far as I could. To where it bent in the undergrowth," Elphaba read and then paused looking to the next stanza. "Then took the other, as just as fair, and having perhaps the better claim because it was grassy and wanted wear, though as for that the passing there had worn them really about the same." Elphaba paused her reading and said, "I am reading this right, aren't I? Why are the lines on different lines?"

"That's just the way poetry works."

"Oh. And both that morning equally lay in leaves no step had trodden black. Oh, I kept the first for another day! Yet knowing how way leads on to way I doubted if I should ever come back. I shall be telling this with a sigh somewhere ages and ages hence: Two roads diverged in a wood, and I, I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference."

"You did it. Would you like to try another poem?"

"Yeah."

"Okay." Fiyero flipped through the book and handed it back to Elphaba.

Elphaba looked at the page and smiled. She read the title of the poem to them. "Wind and Window Flower."

"I think she may have this, are you sure you never learned to read?"

"Actually, no. I can't remember any of my life before coming over here, I may have learned to read at some point, but if I did I never had anything to read and eventually forgot I could."

"Wow, that's sad. The glasses are helping you though aren't they?"

"Yes. The poem reads, Lovers, forget your love, And list to the love of these, she a window flower, and he a winter breeze. When the frosty window veil was melted down at noon, and the caged yellow bird hung over her in tune, he marked her through the pane, he could not help but mark, And only passed her by, to come again at dark. He was a winter wind, concerned with ice and snow, dead weeds and unmated birds, and little of love could know. But he sighed upon the sill, He gave the sash a shake, as witness all within who lay that night awake. Perchance he half prevailed to win her for the flight from the firelit looking-glass and warm stove-window light. But the flower leaned aside and thought of naught to say, and morning found the breeze a hundred miles away."

"You can read. My life is complete."

"No it's not how am I going to pass the tests, when I don't even know what a test is?"

"We'll work on that."

Elphaba looked at the clock on the wall and stood up. "The clock looks funny."

"Try taking the glasses off," Fiyero suggested.

She took the glasses off and gasped. "It's normal again. Are these magic?"

"No not really. They're for reading. What time is it?" Glinda asked.

"Six thirty."

"Oh. I don't have to be home until eight," Fiyero said.

"Now what do we do?" Glinda asked.

"I don't know, teaching her to read wasn't supposed to be this easy."

"I'm sorry," Elphaba said. "We could play a game?"

"What kind of game?"

"I don't know, I'm having fun with poetry, you could find some poems and I could try to guess the next line and then I could read a line and you guess the next and so on."

Glinda went over to her computer and pulled up something. "Okay, I'll start. Whose woods these are I think I know."

Fiyero and Elphaba glanced at each other. Fiyero shook his head and Elphaba smiled. "His house is in the village though," Elphaba said.

"Correct, one point, Elphaba," Glinda said.

"Wait," Fiyero said. "Since when are there points? You said nothing about points."

"What fun is a game if there are no points?" Glinda asked.

"Over hill, over dale," Elphaba said.

Glinda looked at Fiyero. "What?" He asked.

"You're the theater boy don't you know?"

"Thorough bush, thorough briar," he responded.

"Point, Fiyero," Elphaba said.

They played the game until they each had five points, which took about an hour. Lara walked into the room. She smiled at them and then said, "It's seven thirty, and how far away does Fiyero live?"

"I should leave. Thank you for having me. This has been fun," Fiyero said. He stood up and walked over to the door.

"I could take you home," Lara offered.

"Thanks, but—" He opened the door and they all heard a crash of thunder.

"When did it start storming?" Glinda asked. She had never liked thunderstorms. "Fiyero let my mom take you home. You shouldn't walk in a storm, you could get hurt."

Elphaba grabbed Glinda's hand and Glinda held onto it.

"I'll gladly accept your offer. I didn't realize it was supposed to rain today," Fiyero said.

"The car is in the garage," Lara said and directed Fiyero to it. "Don't break anything," she told the girls.

"We won't," Elphaba said. "Goodbye, Diamond boy."

"Goodbye emerald one."


	8. Start of a New Day

Elphaba sat on the edge of Glinda's bed. "I'm not so sure about this."

Glinda looked up from her laptop, where she was using the webcam as a mirror. She shook her head. "Hunter, you were plenty sure about this last week, and all week while we were tutoring you. You learned to read for this. You were plenty ready when you took the test yesterday."

Elphaba stood up and crossed over to Glinda where she looked over her shoulder into the camera as well. Glinda stared at her in the camera and smiled. Elphaba grinned and then looked down. "That's before I realized how many people are in a school. What if they don't like me?"

Glinda sighed. She turned in her chair and looked at Elphaba. "Elphie, if other people don't like you, fine it's their loss. They won't know what they're missing. But I don't want you to beat yourself up over what they think about you, especially in front of them. I also don't want you to ever think that you have to change because of them."

"You called me Elphie."

"I'm practicing. I'm not going to call you hunter at school, that's my nickname and no one else can have it."

"You'll always be my hummingbird, Glin."

Glinda smiled. She stood up and stretched a little. She looked over Elphie who was still wearing her pajamas. "You can't wear those to school."

"Why not, what else would I wear?"

Glinda walked over to the closet and looked through the clothes hanging up in it. "Um." She pulled out the dress Elphie had liked so much. "Just wear the dress. It's pretty."

Elphie changed into the dress and spun around for Glinda. "Better now?"

"Yes." She handed her the shoes she got to wear with the dress. "Don't forget the shoes."

Elphie put on the shoes. Glinda closed the laptop, picked it up and headed out of the room. Elphie followed Glinda out of their room and into the kitchen. "Bacon?" She asked when they entered the room.

"Yes Elphie bacon. It's your favorite isn't it?" Glinda took her laptop over to her book bag sitting against the wall, by the garage door and put it inside.

"I love bacon."

They sat down at the table and began eating their breakfast. Lara walked into the room. "You two are up quite early aren't you?"

"No, we're on time. For school aren't we, Elphie?"

Elphie nodded her head and went back to munching on bacon. Lara sat down at the table. "Today's Monday?"

"Of course it is. Don't you have a calendar in your room?"

"Yeah, but I only use it to keep track of appointments."

Glinda stood up and took her plate over to the sink and began washing it. Elphie finished off the bacon and brought her plate over too, careful not to get too close to the water. Glinda took the plate from her and began washing it. "Momsie," Glinda said while scrubbing maple syrup off her plate. "Remind us of the story you and Popsicle told the administration at school, so we don't contradict anything that you might have said."

"Elphaba is our adopted daughter and she lived in a country where children weren't required a formal education, but her mother, bless her soul had her homeschooled for a time and then they came to America looking for a better life. But her mother died before they could get a real start and we adopted her so that she could get the life her mother wanted her to have."

"What country did you say she's from?"

"Doesn't matter, just a small country, in Eastern Europe."

"What about her lack of an accent?"

"Child. She's a child and she learned English as they traveled across Europe to try to get to America by boat, because it's cheaper that way."

"Why don't you write stories?"

"Because reading them is more fun than writing them, now who's taking you to school today?"

"You are aren't you?"

"No one told me that."

"Momsie, do we have to walk to school?"

"No."

"Then you are taking us?"

"Let me go get my keys."

Lara got up from the table and left the room. She came back with her keys. Glinda put the dishes in the drainer and grabbed her book bag from beside the door. Elphie grabbed her book bag too and they went into the garage and got into Lara's little red car.

Lara drove them to school and let them out at the front door. "Be good. I don't want to hear any bad reports from any of your teachers, understand."

"Yes, mum," Elphie said.

"Of course, momsie," Glinda said.

Elphie looked at the school. It was a fairly big building, with its name prominently displayed on the front of the building. Shiz Garden School of the Mind.

Glinda looked to Elphie and smiled. "Don't worry, it'll be fun."

Elphie just nodded and followed Glinda into the school.

Students were gathered in the lobby before classes began. The group nearest the door stopped talking when Elphie and Glinda walked through the door. They snickered and giggled when they saw the color of Elphaba's skin. A teacher walked up to Glinda and Elphaba and the group of giggling kids stopped giggling, so they wouldn't get yelled at.

"You must be Miss Elphaba," the woman said. "My name is Madame Morrible, I am the head of the school here." She looks at her clip board. "Your test scores show that you're very bright."

"Bright?" One of the giggling kids by the door asked. "She's phosphorescent." The others started laughing.

Elphaba turned to hit the girl who said that but Glinda held her back. "Don't listen to them," she whispered. Elphaba turned back to Madame Morrible.

Madame Morrible pretended not to hear them. "Are you sure you don't want to be bumped up to the grade you're testing at?"

"Quite, I'll stick with my sister," Elphaba said.

"Suit yourself. I'm sure her teachers won't mind being saddled with you in their classes. If the two of you will come with me I am sure we can get this all worked out in guidance, right away."

Glinda and Elphaba followed Madame Morrible to the guidance office. It was a fairly big room, with a waiting area that had the main desk – where people asked the secretary questions and obtained copies of their transcripts – and several offices that branched off from it. Inside the waiting area there was a round table with four chairs around it. Glinda and Elphaba sat at the table and Madame Morrible talked with the secretary for a minute and then knocked on one of the doors and motioned for the girls to come stand with her.

The guidance counselor who opened the door was a young woman with brown hair who smiled and said, "Head mistress, it's always a pleasure. What can I do for you today?"

"You can assist these two girls." She motioned to Glinda and Elphaba, who stepped in front of the head. "The green one is our new student. She's from-"

"Eastern Europe," Glinda said. The head gave her a stern look. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt."

"Quite alright dearie, don't do it again. She's from Eastern Europe and she's going to be placed in all of this one's classes." She motioned to Glinda. "She's her adopted sister. So it's probably best if they stick together."

"I understand. Girls if you'll come into my office we can get this settled right away."

The girls entered the office and Madame Morrible shut the door behind them and left guidance.

"Okay, first I'm going to need your names," the guidance counselor said.

Glinda sat in one of the chairs in the office and motioned for Elphaba to sit in the other. "I'm Glinda Upland and she's my sister Elphaba."

"What's my second name?" Elphaba asked Glinda in a hushed whisper.

"It should be the same as mine, unless momsie and popsicle did something stupid," Glinda replied in the same hushed whisper.

"Ah yes, now she is the same age as you. Correct?"

"Yes. We're both thirteen," Glinda said.

"She'll be joining all of your classes. Family sticks together, that sort of thing. It shouldn't be too difficult to do. She's testing above grade level though."

"She doesn't know anybody else here Except Fiyero Tigelaar. He's in our grade. And very reasonably she's a little scared of big groups of people that she doesn't know," Glinda said.

"That's understandable. You're lucky that's there's room in all of your classes for an extra person. Otherwise we wouldn't be able to do that." The counselor printed out a sheet of paper for the girls. "Now Glinda I know you know your schedule but most of your teachers will need proof that it's hers."

Glinda took the paper from the counselor and handed it to Elphaba. "Thanks. I'm sure some of the teachers won't be happy having a new student join the class so late in the year, but I'm sure they'll learn to like her."

Elphaba just smiled nervously. She and Glinda left the guidance office.

They stood in the lobby for a minute before moving away from guidance. People stared and pointed as they passed by. The whispers grew louder and the snickers became meaner.

"Freak," people whispered as they passed by. Glinda grew angry at the people's blatant disrespect and discrimination but said nothing. Elphaba just ignored them, knowing that Glinda would get mad at her if she got in a fight on the first day of school.

"She the love child of a whore and a cucumber," another person said.

Elphaba and Glinda turned to the people at that statement. "I don't know which of you said that," Elphaba said. "I don't want to. You don't want me to either. My name is Elphaba and I am the wicked witch of the west, if you don't want to be turned into a flying monkey, you'll keep the rude comments about my mother limited to when I am not in earshot. Understand?"

Glinda looked at them. "It wouldn't be too difficult I imagine. Just be careful. Say the spell wrong and they'll explode like a tuna fish sandwich."

The people scattered, none too eager to become a flying monkey or explode.

Elphaba chuckled. "Did you see the look on their faces, Glin?"

"I did, Elphie that was brilliant."

They walked around the lobby for a while, noticing that people were still pointing and whispering, but no one was being loud enough that either of them could hear. Soon they headed toward their first class and the start of school.


	9. Names and Paper Balls

People gave them weird looks as they walked down the hall toward their first class, most other people, however remained in the lobby. They were going to be ten minutes early for their first class, but that meant they would have more time to find a good seat and less time in the lobby for people to make fun of Elphaba.

Glinda knocked on the door of their first class. A stout little man with scraggly hair and a goatee opened the door. Elphaba looked at the man, his haggard appearance had an almost goat-like effect on him. "Good morning, Ms. Glinda," the man said. "It's strange of you to be so early to class. Do you need help with the homework?"

"Oh no, Dr. Dillamond," Glinda said. "May we come in?"

"Oh sure, my classroom is always open to my students."

Glinda and Elphaba entered the classroom. They sat down in two desks at the front of the room and Dr. Dillamond walked over to them.

"Is there something I can help you with?" Dr. Dillamond asked.

"Only if you know how to prevent people from being human," Glinda said.

"Now, Glin, what does that mean? People can't just not be human," Elphaba said.

"Who's this?" Dr. Dillamond asked.

"This is my adopted sister, Elphaba. She's new to the school and is in all of my classes. Which means she's in your class."

"Oh is she now," the Dr. said.

"I am," Elphaba responded, showing him her schedule.

There was frantic knocking at the door and the Dr. got up and let the person in. It was Fiyero and he looked like he had been running. Fiyero closed the door behind him and there were little thumps as many paper balls hit the outside of the door all at once.

"I never knew people at our school carried so much paper," Fiyero said out of breath. He looked up and spied Glinda and Elphaba sitting at the front of the room. "There you two are. I'm glad you two aren't hurt. From the way those people reacted when I asked if they had seen either of you today, I thought there had been a fight, or a murder."

"Murder?" Dr. Dillamond asked bewildered.

"It's a strange story," Glinda said. "It's also why we're hiding in here. Those people are judgmental pricks. They were picking on Elphie and she didn't even do anything."

"What did that guy say about me? Before I scared him away?" Elphaba asked.

"He said you were quote 'the love child of a whore and a cucumber.' It's sickening how childish people act when they see someone who looks different than them."

"They probably hate me even more now that I told them I'm the wicked witch of the west. I don't care, if that's the way they act I don't want them to like me. I will try to be nice however. I don't think my looks are all that important, and maybe if I'm nice enough they won't either."

"I'm not sure how well that is going to work," Glinda said.

"I am going to ignore their rude comments, maybe they'll stop making them if they think that they don't bother me."

"I don't think that'll work either, but you can try," Fiyero said.

"If I may interject, what does it matter what the other students say? If you don't think your looks are important, then why bother caring if the other students do or not," the Dr. said.

"Actually, I don't know. I used to know why I cared what people thought about me, but now that I have Glinda, who really does care, I don't know."

"Have you lost your mind? You told me that you helped people who couldn't help themselves, because that was the only way people would accept you. Don't you still want that?"

"Those people are completely capable of helping themselves."

"She has a point," the Dr. said.

Elphaba stood up and paced around the room. Thinking. Then she spotted a book on the Dr.'s desk. She picked it up. "Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West," she read out loud. "Hey this is the book that gave me my name."

The Dr. turned and looked. "Just so you know, it's not nice to take things, but I just finished reading it and if you want to borrow it you can. That book is the reason people call me Dr. Dillamond. They think I look like a goat, so I let them call me Dr. Dillamond, instead of Goatman."

"That book always confused me," Fiyero admitted. "The characters, they have our names. Our full names"

"What? Do they? I thought we were just named after them, sharing first names. That's not uncommon, is it?"

Elphaba opened up the book and read from page 69, "After the forgettable welcome remarks as couple by couple the students and Amas left to locate their lodgings and settle in, Galinda found herself growing pale with embarrassment. Ama Clutch, the old fool, would have fixed her up nicely with someone just a notch or two above on the social ladder! Near enough Galinda would face no shame, and  _above_  enough to make it worth the while of socializing. But now all the better young misses were linked together. Diamond to diamond, emerald to emerald, for all she could tell! As the room began to empty, Galinda wondered if she shouldn't go up and interrupt Madame Morrib;e and explain the problem. Galinda was, after all, an Arduenna of the Uplands, at least on one side. It was a hideous accident. Her eyes teared up."

"Galinda Upland of the Upper Uplands, she calls herself in the musical," Fiyero said.

"You've seen the musical?" Glinda asked.

"My sister is obsessed with it."

Elphaba flipped through the book some more and read from page 144. "Avaric, sliding into the seat next to Boq, said, 'He's a prince, they say. A prince without a purse or a throne. A pauper noble. In his particular tribe, I mean. He stays at Ozma towers and his name is Fiyero.'"

"In the third book it's mentioned that his last name is Tigelaar, just like mine. Again my sister is obsessed with it."

"I'm not sure what to make of this," Glinda said.

"Neither am I," Elphaba said. "I know I chose to name myself after the wicked witch of the west, but you two share full names with characters of the book."

"It could just be a coincidence," the Dr. said.

"It must be," Glinda said. "My mom read the book, perhaps she knows."

"What about Madame Morrible? Are we just going to forget her?" Elphaba asked.

"She's French," the Dr. said. "That's why she calls herself Madame, and Morrible is just her last name. She finds it funny that she shares a name with 'Horrible Morrible' but she's nowhere near as bad as her. She's actually quite nice, if you're on her good side."

"And if you're not on her good side?" Elphaba asked.

"I don't know, never know anyone not on her good side to talk about it."

Other students began filing into class and Elphaba took her seat, before someone else could. Fiyero took the seat to the left of her and Glinda was in the seat to her right. No one sat in the seat behind her. The Dr. walked up to the board and began writing on it. "Today we are going to talk about some key issues of the Cold War." He turned to face the students. "But first, we have a new student. Miss Elphaba. Would you care to stand and tell the class a little about yourself?"

"I'll stand," she said. She stood up and walked a little ways away from her desk and turned to face the class. "My name is Elphaba. I'm from Eastern Europe."

"Are you seasick, still?" someone asked from the back of the room.

"No I'm not seasick."

"Have you always been green?" someone else asked.

"Yes. And it's not because I ate grass as a child. I have never once ate grass."

"Are you really the wicked witch of the west?"

"Yes, now I don't think any of these questions are really doing anyone any good."

"That's enough questions," the Dr. said. "You can have a seat."

Elphaba sat back down.

"They're never going to like you," Glinda whispered. "If you keep telling them you're the wicked witch of the west."

"If they keep thinking it, they'll be too scared to pick on me," Elphaba whispered back.

"I know they will, but-" Glinda began.

"What country was America 'at war with' during the cold war?" Dr. Dillamond asked. Elphaba raised her hand. "Ah yes, Miss Elphaba."

"Russia," Elphaba answered.

"That's correct." Dr. Dillamond turned back to his board and began a little speech about the cold war.

A paper ball hit Elphie in the back of the head. She ignored it. Another and another hit her. One bounced off her and hit Glinda who turned and glared around the class. The paper barrage stopped for a minute then continued with rising fury. Until one of the balls missed the three at the front and headed to Dr. Dillamond. He turned and caught the ball and everyone gasped.

"Who is responsible for this?" he asked holding the paper ball up. No one said anything. "Well, I'm waiting for an answer." Still no one said anything. "Very well. You're all going to have to write a five page essay on the cold war, if the responsible part fesses up then they'll be the only one writing the essay and the rest of you will simply have to answer one question on the cause of the cold war."

Still no one spoke up, the silence of the other students was beginning to make Elphaba uncomfortable. They'd seriously rather write a five page essay than admit that they were throwing paper balls in class. Glinda squirmed in her chair. She could feel the other students staring at them. They were going to get the blame for this, one way or another, she just knew it.

"Alright then, if the guilty one won't fess up. Your essays are due at the beginning of class tomorrow. I expect them to be at least second draft quality, with valid sources." The students groaned and he just tossed the paper ball into the trash can. "You should have thought before you threw the ball. Class dismissed." No one moved. "You heard me class dismissed. I expect those essays as soon as you walk through that door tomorrow." The Dr. walked over to his desk and sat down.

The other students got up and left the room. Elphie, Glinda and Fiyero stayed in their seats. Elphie got up and began picking up the paper balls. Glinda stood up and helped her, then Fiyero joined in. They cleaned the whole room of paper balls.

Dr. Dillamond looked up from his desk when he heard the sound of people walking in the room. "What are you three still doing here? Don't you want to go join your friends?"

They stopped collecting the paper for a minute. Glinda looked at the paper in her hands and said, "Those people are not our friends."

Elphaba just sort of smiled and nodded. "These are my friends." She motioned to Glinda and Fiyero while trying not to drop the paper in her hands.

"We're helping here," Fiyero said as he took the paper in his hands over to the recycling bin. "Besides if we left, they'd just throw paper at us out there."

Glinda and Elphaba walked over and put their paper into the recycling bin as well. Elphaba walked back to her desk and sat down. She pulled a notebook and a pen out of her book bag. She took the cap off of the pen and smiled. "I'm going to start the essay here." She put the pen to the top of the paper, but hesitated to write anything. "How does an essay start?"

"Usually with a title," Glinda said. She walked over and pulled her desk next to Elphaba's. "For this one try Cold War Essay."

The Dr. chuckled from his desk. "It really should be a little more creative than that. Do you three know who threw the paper?"

"Everyone but us? I doubt anyone else in the front row would have been throwing paper either," Fiyero said. He sat down in his desk again.

"So it wasn't just one person?" The Dr. looked at them and sighed. "This is going to be a long day for all of us isn't it?"

"Probably," Glinda said.

"Most likely," Fiyero said.

Elphaba just nodded and put her pen to the page again. She wrote at the top of her paper, 'War Behind Closed Doors'. "Do I have to write an essay? I'm not quite sure if I know how to do that. There was no test on that."

The Dr. thought about it for a minute. "I could give you three a break. After all, you did stay and clean up, even though you weren't the ones responsible for the mess in the first place. What was the title of your essay going to be?"

"War behind closed doors," Elphaba said.

"That's a really nice title. Better suited for a novel or short story than an essay about the cold war, though," the Dr. said.

"Short story?" Elphaba asked.

"Like the books you've been reading. It's a short work of fiction," Glinda said.

"Novels are long," Fiyero added.

"Perhaps, I could let the three of you off without having to do the essay. You didn't make the mess, but you cleaned up. Do you want to write the essay?"

"Not really, I have so much to do in philosophy already, I'm probably going to die of stress, from just that class alone. But you assigned the essay to the whole class. It wouldn't be fair to exempt us three from the assignment," Glinda said.

"It's not exempting you, it's grading a different type of submission. You cleaned my classroom and besides, it's her first day of class. She doesn't even know how to write an essay, does she?"

Glinda looked at the little green girl in the desk beside her. She seemed to be concentrating on the sheet of paper pretty hard. The only thing written on her paper was the title. "Staring at the page isn't going to write anything."

"Well, I don't know what I am doing," Elphaba countered.

"She doesn't. I guess it's alright, unfair to the others, but they shouldn't have been acting like idiots anyway."

"You three had best head on to your next class, you don't want to be late."

"True," Fiyero said.

They gathered their stuff and headed out the door. "See you tomorrow, Dr.," Elphaba said as they left the room.


	10. Talents

They walked quickly to their next class and sat through another ninety minutes of people throwing things at them. Elphaba tried to pay as much attention to the lesson as possible, but that became increasingly more difficult as the class progressed. The paper bounced off her head and landed on Glinda's desk. Glinda opened the paper ball and say that there was a note written on the inside: I'm trying to talk to you.

Glinda glanced around the classroom and didn't see who threw the ball, so she just turned back and tried to ignore it. Another ball hit Elphie and landed on Glinda's desk. She opened this one too and it had another note in it: please don't ignore me. I'm not trying to be mean. I'm trying to talk to you.

Glinda looked around again and then just sighed and put the ball to the edge of her desk. When class was done the teacher looked around and said, "You'll be having a test on this on Wednesday."

People filed out of the class room. Glinda stood up and stretched then looked to Elphaba who was picking paper up from around her desk. "Someone was trying to talk to you."

"Were they?" Elphaba stood up and took the paper to the recycle bin. "They're going to run out of paper this way."

"Yeah, probably, but who would want to talk to you after the way you scared those idiots this morning?"

"I would." A boy was standing behind Glinda. He wasn't much taller than Elphaba, with sandy blond hair and hazel eyes. Glinda jumped not having realized there was anyone other than her, Elphie and the teacher in the room. "I didn't mean to startle you, Glinda," he said.

Elphaba looked at the boy. "Why do you want to talk to me? If you want to make fun of me take a number, I'm sure the cucumber boy is standing first in line."

"Cucumber boy?" The boy looked more than a little nervous. "I'm not sure I understand, but I don't want to make fun of you."

"Oh really, then why throw paper at me?"

"I only threw four paper balls at you, one asking you to look, three telling you that I just wanted to talk."

"Well paper boy, what's your name? I'd like to know before I decide I don't want to talk to you or I turn you into a flying monkey."

"My name is Timothy, but you can call me Timmy, Tim or Tater Tot."

"Tater Tot?"

"I know it's weird, but it's what my family calls me."

Glinda looked at the boy. "What makes you want to talk to her?"

Elphaba picked up her stuff. "Are we going to be late for our next class, Glinda?"

Glinda gathered up her stuff and sighed. "No. Not if we can help it. I'm sure that Ms. Liht, wouldn't mind either way, but still. It's not nice to be late."

"Ms. Liht? I'm in that class, we could walk together." Tim smiled. "If it wouldn't be a bother?"

Elphaba looked at Glinda and sighed.

"You're going to walk with us anyway aren't you?" Glinda asked.

Tim nodded.

"Then I suppose you're prepared for people to make fun of you, for being around me," Elphaba said.

"Of course. People already make fun of me, for believing in dragons, and magic. I don't mean like fluffy stage magic, I mean real magic. It's amazing."

"This school teaches sorcery classes, that hardly anyone takes and yet, people bully the people who actually do believe in magic? What is wrong with society? Is it just our school, or are people like this everywhere?" Glinda said.

Elphaba touched Glinda's arm reassuringly. "From my experiences before I met you, people are like this everywhere."

"It isn't right."

"Glinda, it's never right. The world isn't right. I'm sorry. I don't think it ever will be right," Elphaba said.

"Well, that's going to have to change," Glinda said.

"Glin, with you, everything has to change."

"Not everything, not you, not Fiyero. Not Tim either."

Tim smiled. "You're the first person who's ever said that I don't need to change. Even my mom has told me I need to change. She wants me to stop believing in dragons and magic, but I can't do that. It's not right to just stop believing in something, because on person says you should. If everyone stopped believing in things because people said they should, nothing would ever change, and nothing would ever get done."

"I don't know what to say, except when did we get to our class?" Glinda said, looking up and realizing that they were at their next class room.

"I don't know," Elphaba said honestly.

"Force of habit, we walked there while we were talking. I'm surprised neither of you noticed. You'll get lost like that." Tim opened the door to their class room and walked in, holding it open for Elphie and Glinda.

They walked in and took their seats. Ms. Liht looked at them. "You're rather early, don't you eat lunch?"

"Not today, Ms. Liht. Can't risk a food fight," Tim said.

"Food fight?" She wrote something in the notebook on her desk and sighed. "Why don't I every get normal students?"

"Because normal is over-rated," Elphaba said.

"Just who exactly are you?" Ms. Liht asked.

"My name is Elphaba, and I am—"

Glinda hit her. "If you tell the teacher you're the wicked witch of the west, I'm disowning you," she whispered sharply. "She's my sister," she said looking up at Ms. Liht.

"I didn't know you had a sister," Ms. Liht said. "You never talk about her."

"She's newly adopted."

"Oh. Still. So Miss Elphaba, what are your special talents?"

"Talents?"

"Yes, talents. Everyone has them. Mine's drawing, but don't tell any of the other students. They'd never shut up about it. It gets quite annoying, when students want you to draw things for them and you have to remind them that you're not an art teacher. By the way Glinda, I never did remember to tell you how much I loved that video you made of your answers to the questions when we were discussing good versus evil."

"Thanks," Glinda said.

"If being a commotion is a talent then I have that down pat. I think however that if reading were a talent, I'd spend all day honing it. I have to say that not everyone has a talent I think, but just maybe thinking they do encourages people to try everything. They may never find their 'talent' but they'll find something they love and get better at it as time goes on," Elphaba said.

Ms. Liht looked at the girl. She smiled. "Thinking. That is a great talent."

"I never said it was my talent. I'd rather not think if I can help it. It's more trouble than it's worth. It always is. I'd think, but it's hard to do when there's so much encouragement not to. I mean I've only been truly aware of what's been going on in the world for about a week, as long as I've been reading the newspaper and watching T.V. I know that the media only wants us to think what they tell us to think and not what we want to think. People get in trouble every day for going against what the media wants people to be thinking."

Glinda giggled nervously and pulled small pink lunchbox out of her book bag. She opened it up and took a look at the contents, two tuna sandwiches, a red apple, pudding, and a bottle of tea. She took one of the tuna sandwiches and shoved it in Elphaba's mouth to silence her. "Oh hush now Elphie and eat. Remember, as long as I'm around it's still illegal for you not to eat three meals a day."

Elphaba took the sandwich out of her mouth and began eating it normally. "Does your mom always pack you two sandwiches?"

"Yes, she does. I never eat both though. She probably packed you a lunch too." Glinda walked over to Elphie's book bag and opened it. She looked through it until she found a little green lunch box and brought it to where Elphie was sitting. "Here, Elphie, she did make you a lunch."

Elphaba finished her sandwich and opened the little 'box', inside was a green apple, pudding, two sandwiches and a bottle of apple juice. She looked at Tim who wasn't eating anything. "Tim are you hungry?" she asked.

"Oh I'm fine."

"But you're not eating, and you're skipping lunch. It's my fault isn't it? I'm the commotion. I'm what's got everyone in the school upset today. Here." She passed him one of her sandwiches. "Eat, please. I don't want to be the cause of you going hungry."

"Five minutes ago, you didn't even want to talk to me. Now you're offering to share your lunch. I don't know if I should trust you." Tim said.

"Tater Tot, know one thing, once I've decide I like someone I will never – I repeat – never let anything harm them. Especially not myself." Elphaba said.

Tim took the sandwich and thanked Elphaba. "That's very nice. When did you decide that you like me?"

"When did you decide you wanted to talk to me?"

"That's not nice answering my question with another question. I decided I wanted to talk to you the moment I realized that we're not all that different from each other. After all we're both human and we both go to this school and we both get bullied. If everybody looked at what's the same instead of always looking at what's different, then maybe, just maybe, the world would be a better place."

"Thinking again," Ms. Liht said. "I swear people should actually listen to what kids and teens and young adults say. They aren't as stupid as the media makes them out to be."

"Is that a compliment?" Glinda asked.

"Of course, I would never insult people who are thinking."

"Thank you," Tim said. "Now Elphaba, please answer the question."

"I decided I like you when you decide that you wanted to talk to me and sincerely told me that you didn't want to bully me. When you decided to be nice to me, I decided that you deserved a friend, because it takes something special to go against the mass, the majority opinion, and talk to someone who is genuinely hated and shamed by the rest of the world. Other people would be devastated by having so few friends, but I can say, I never expected even one friend and so every friend I get is truly a blessing, while to the rest of the world, to people who don't like me I am nothing but a curse," Elphaba said.

"You're not a curse to us," Glinda said.

"I know."

"The people who don't like you can go rafting over a waterfall. There isn't a legitimate reason I've seen for not liking you. I mean, sure you told them that you're the wicked witch of the west, but come on, they deserved that," Tim said.

"Wicked witch of the west? We live on the Eastern seaboard," Ms. Liht said.

"I'm from Eastern Europe, this is west to me. Besides, I named myself after the wicked witch of the west, I might as well scare people with the title when they're being jerks."

Glinda finished off her apple and smiled. "Yes, but they're not going to stop being jerks, just because they think you're the wicked witch. If anything it'll make everything worse. I can't think of a better plan at the moment, so let's just hope that nothing goes wrong."

"You mean anymore wrong than it already has?"

"Exactly."


	11. The Park

Weeks passed like pages falling off a calendar. School ended and people still resented Elphaba the green skinned girl, who within a month of being in the school, wrecked the grading curve, caused the implementation of new rules about throwing objects in class and read the library dry of books.

Tim came to Glinda and Elphie's house one day in the middle of summer. Fiyero was following   him. They walked up to the front door and Tim knocked on the door. Lara opened the door and Tim smiled politely. "Good morning, Mrs. Upland. Are Glinda and Elphaba home?"

"Good morning, Tim. I'm afraid not. They're at the park," Lara said.

"Oh, okay. Thanks." Tim and Fiyero walked off the porch. She shut the door.

"Which park do you supposed she meant?"

"The one with the most trees," Fiyero suggested.

"There are like a million trees in central park."

"I bet that's where they went then."

Tim and Fiyero headed to Central Park, which was thirty blocks away from "The Emerald Meadows". It took them about half an hour to get to the park, and another ten minutes in the park to find Glinda.

"Glinda," Tim called to her.

"Tim?" She asked turning around. "I thought so. I knew I recognized that voice. Oh and Fiyero too. What brings you two here?"

"We need to talk to you and Elphaba," Tim said.

"About what?" she asked.

"Sorcery classes. You know the ones at our school. Well the teacher wants to meet and test the students who signed up to be in the class."

"Alright, when does she want to meet us?"

"Today. In like an hour."

"We need to find Elphie then."

They began searching around the park for the green skinned girl. They called out for her and scanned the whole park.

"Honestly," Fiyero gasped, "how does someone with green skin vanish so easily?"

They walked around the restroom building and spotted someone trying to take a lady's purse, on the walking path. "Should we go help her?" Tim asked, but before they could move, they saw a shimmer of red in the bush beside the path and something jumped out of the bush. A green skinned girl grabbed the man that was trying to take the lady's purse and smiled wickedly.

"Boo," she said.

"You're green," the man shouted.

"I hadn't noticed. Now are you going to let go of her purse or do I have to call my flying monkeys?" She cackled maniacally, a sound that startled everyone who could hear it.

The man let go of the lady's purse and took off running as fast as he could.

"You, you," the lady who was being robbed stammered.

Elphaba leaned down and picked up the lady's purse and handed it back to her. "Here's your purse lady."

"Thank you." The lady walked away muttering something about needing to have her vision checked.

"It ain't easy being green," Elphaba muttered and noticing her friends walked over to them. "Hey," she said.

Fiyero noticed that she was just a bit taller that when he had first met her, a few inches really. "Hey. The sorcery teacher needs to see us."

"How soon?"

"We have an hour, but getting to the school is going to take that long, so we have to go now."

They began walking out of the park and Elphaba asked, "Why are we taking this sorcery class again?"

"So we can blow things up?" Glinda offered.

"Because magic is amazing," Tim said.

"Because truth be told it's the only class in school where you'll get some peace," Fiyero said.

After that they walked on in silence, concerned by how true Fiyero's words really were.


	12. Magic

The school was relatively empty when they arrived. The only people there were the students who had signed up for the sorcery class and the sorcery instructor. They didn't even go inside the building. The teacher had set up a little area outside of the main entrance for them to test their skills.

The teacher was standing by a table covered with many books. "These are spell books. I don't expect that any of you have read spell books before. They're not exactly something you will come across in the average library or bookstore. Now before we get started. Tell me first what your names are."

The students only twelve in all stepped forward one at a time and introduced themselves. The first student stepped forward, a girl with bright pink hair and a warm smile. She introduced herself as Amber. The next girl stepped forward had black hair and a smile like the Cheshire cat, she introduced herself as Regina. The next student who stepped forward was a blonde haired boy. "My name is Potato. I know, my parents hate me."

Fiyero stepped forward next. "I am Fiyero. No the diamonds do not come off."

Glinda did a little curtsy. "I'm Glinda Upland."

Elphaba was a little shyer. She took a small step forward and said, "I am Elphaba Upland. Glinda is my sister and yes I've always been green."

Tim stepped forward and introduced himself. Then another girl stepped forward, she had curly brown hair and she nearly tripped just stepping forward; she introduced herself as Cronan. The girl who followed Cronan had almost silver hair and called herself Lucy. The next student, a boy, stepped forward and introduced himself as Aaron. The last two girls were talking one of them stepped forward and said, "See Jemma this isn't hard. I'm Chantal."

The last girl stepped forward. "I don't like talking. I'm Jemma. No don't look at me." She hid behind Chantal.

"Wonderful. Now gather around students and we shall begin at once," the teacher said.

"But you didn't tell us your name," Potato said.

"Oh my goodness, you're right. How silly of me. My name is Professor Tribble. We shall begin at once. I have no doubt you are all qualified students. But we shall test and see what sort of innate skills you possess."

The students all exchanged nervous glances.

"Now there's no need to fret. You won't be kicked out of the class just because you can't produce any magic today." She walked over to the table and picked up one of the spell books and recited a simple chant. The students gasped when an assortment of items, ranging from pencils to volleyballs, appeared in front of them.

"What are we supposed to do with these?" Aaron asked.

"Change them, of course."

Elphaba was repeating the chant that Professor Tribble did, under her breath. Glinda heard her mumbling. "Hunter, what are you doing?" Elphaba kept repeating the chant. "Elphie, speak up. I can't hear a word you're saying."

Elphaba spoke the chant only loud enough for Glinda to hear her words, but messed up one of the words slightly. There was a loud yowl followed by Glinda running around screaming, "Get it off! Get it off!"

A small black cat jumped off Glinda's head and landed in Elphaba's arms. "Glin, it's just a cat."

"It's a demon!"

Fiyero examined Glinda's face and said, "It's just a small scratch. Cats do that. You'll live."

"He's not a demon. He's my cat," Elphaba hissed protectively.

"What is going on here?" Professor Tribble asked.

"Elphaba made a demon appear," Glinda said accusingly.

"He's a cat not a demon," Elphaba said.

"You made a cat appear?" Professor Tribble asked. "How?"

"I was repeating the chant you said and Glinda asked me to speak up because she couldn't hear what I was saying and I lost focus and missaid one of the words. And the suddenly there was a cat on her head and she freaked out because it scratched her."

"That cat is unholy!"

"It's just a cat. Why don't you try turning something into a cat toy then and see if he likes you when you've done something other than scream at him."

"That's actually a good idea, Glinda," Professor Tribble said. "Try turning one of the pencils into a cat toy."

Glinda went to the table and picked up a spell book and found a spell for changing things. She pictured a cat toy in her mind and said the spell. There was a small puff of pink smoke and one of the tennis balls on the ground turned into a ball of yarn.

"Marvelous," Professor Tribble said. "Simply marvelous."

"That wasn't at all what I was trying to do," Glinda said.

"But it was still marvelous."

Jemma looked at the stuff on the blanket and picked up a few pencils then walked over to Glinda. "May I please see that book?" she asked shyly.

"Sure," Glinda said and handed Jemma the book.

Jemma flipped through the book and chanted a very simple spell. The pencils wobbled in her hands then became roses. "It worked," she gasped.

"Why is everyone here so surprised when magic works?" Professor Tribble asked.

"Because, we're taught from a young age that there's no such thing as magic," Tim said. "The lucky few of us that never give up that belief are usually the ones that have the most trouble performing magic."

"Tim," Elphaba said walking over with the cat. "Are you having trouble with magic?"

"I haven't tried yet, to be honest. I'm scared that I won't be able to do anything and then my mom will have been right the whole time."

"Tim. You should at least try. Everyone else is," Elphaba said.

"If everyone else jumped off a bridge would you?"

"No, but that's because of the water under the bridge."

"Can't swim?"

"It's a little more complicated than that. I'll tell you about it later."

"Alright," Tim walked over to the table and picked up one of the spell books and opened it to a random page. He read over the spell on the page several times and sighed. Then he turned to the stuff on the ground and focused on one of the volleyballs. He began chanting the spell on the page. Turning the volleyball into a "Watermelijin."

Glinda looked at the newly changed watermelon on the ground and sighed. "You said watermelijin. Not watermelon. That's Willemijn's face on that watermelon. It'd better not start talking or I'm leaving," Glinda said.

"Oh shiz," Tim said. "I'm sorry. I wasn't paying attention. I always called them Watermelijins ever since I was a little kid."

"No worries," Professor Tribble said. She walked over and using a modified version of the chant made the watermelijin into a watermelon, without a face.

Amber had managed to turn one of the objects on the ground into a teddy bear and she hugged it tight. "Fluffy," she sighed contentedly.

Regina chanted from a distance and turned the bear in Amber's arms into a snake. Amber shrieked and dropped it. She ran and hid behind Aaron who turned the snake back into the bear.

Cronan smacked Regina. "Why would you do that?"

Regina grinned sheepishly, "I must have miss chanted the spell."

"Well this has been fun," Potato said, "but my mom wants me to come watch her perform today, and I can't be late for it. If you don't mind is it alright if I leave?"

Professor Tribble looked at Potato and said, "Transform something and you can leave."

He turned a pencil into an ink pen and she let him leave.

"Alright," Professor Tribble said, "who hasn't attempted magic today?"

Fiyero walked to the table and looking through the spell books found a simple healing chant and healed the scratch on Glinda's face. Both the professor and Glinda were very shocked when he performed that spell flawlessly.

"Well, that was unexpected," Professor Tribble said. "Anyone else not tried magic today?"

Cronan, Chantal and Lucy stepped forward and Lucy changed the color of Chantal's shirt. Chantal changed Lucy's shirt in return. Cronan tried to change a ball into a bagel but only managed to cause it to pop. She sighed and stomped her foot in frustration.

"Why am I the only one who can't do it?" She stomped her foot again and the watermelon exploded.

"That right there is proof that you can do it," Professor Tribble said. "You're all free to leave. I'll see you back here for open house."


	13. After the Magic

The students milled around for a little bit while Professor Tribble cleaned up.

"Um, Professor Tribble," Amber said, holding the bear again, "can we keep the things we transformed?"

Professor Tribble glanced at the girl. "Of course, if you'd like to keep them you can."

Amber smiled and looked around. "So, am I the only one who is hungry?"

Cronan walked over. "Of course not. It's lunch time."

"I have an idea," Glinda said. "Who has a phone I can borrow?"

"I do," Lucy said. She reached in her pocket and pulled out her cell phone. She handed it to Glinda who called her mom.

"Hi, Momsie," Glinda said into the phone.

"What is it Glin? Where are you anyway?" Her mom asked from the other end.

"School. The sorcery professor wanted a demonstration of magical abilities. I was wondering if I could bring a couple of students home for lunch."

"How many is a couple?"

"Tim, Fiyero, Jemma, Amber, Cronan, Regina, Lucy, Aaron, and Chantal," Glinda said, looking for a confirmation nod from each student as she said their name. "So including me and Elphaba eleven students."

"That's quite a few more than just you and Elphaba. Pizza then, like a little sorcery class pizza party."

"A 'congrats on doing magic' party. I love the idea mom. So this won't be a problem?"

"Unless anyone is allergic to dairy or tomatoes."

"I'll ask," she looked away from the phone and smiled. "Is anyone like allergic to dairy or tomatoes?" No one said anything. She turned back to the phone. "No allergies other than Elphie and water."

"Alright, the pizzas will be here within the hour I hope, when can I expect you?"

"It's should take about half an hour to walk from here to there."

"Okay. Be careful."

"I will, but don't worry, there's eleven of us."

"I still worry, but that's a mom thing."

"I'll see you soon. I love you."

"Love you too, Glin. See you and your friends soon."

"Bye."

"Bye."

Glinda ended the call and handed the phone back to Lucy. "So who is hungry? We're having a 'congrats on doing magic' pizza party at my house. You're all coming aren't you?"

"Pizza?" Amber asked. "Does this involve dancing? Because I don't like dancing."

"Party?" Regina said. She stared them, calculating and wondering how much chaos she could cause at this party.

"Count me in," Aaron said.

Jemma looked around trying to find Chantal. Chantal smiled at Glinda as she caught Jemma's eye. "Jemma and I," Chantal said, "we'll come."

"That's great," Glinda bubbled.

"Tim and I are coming, but I think that was a given," Fiyero said.

"I have to ask my mom," Lucy said. "I'm sure she won't mind, but still." Lucy wandered a little ways away, calling her mom on her phone. A few minutes later she came back with a big grin on her face. "My mom loves the idea of a 'congrats on doing magic party' and she wants to help. She works at a bakery and wants to bring us a cake, when she goes on break."

"Cake? That sounds wonderful."

Elphie was standing off to the side a little ways not used to people being so friendly around her. Cronan walked over to her. "Hey. Can I pet the cat?"

Elphie looked at Cronan when she walked over. "Umm…sure." Elphie handed the cat over to Cronan.

Cronan took the cat and began petting him gently. "So what's its name?"

"Salem. I've decided to call him Salem. That's if our mom lets me keep him."

"If? Why wouldn't she? You made him appear, by right you're his mommy."

Elphie thought about this and then smiled. "I guess I am his mommy in a way."

"Yes. So she has to let you keep him."

Professor Tribble looked around at the students. "Are you walking to this party?"

"Yes, ma'am," Glinda said with a smile.

"Please let me walk you, I'd love to meet your lovely mother," Professor Tribble beseeched.

"Sure," Glinda said. "I bet my mom would really like to meet you too." Glinda turned around and looked at all the people. "Alright everyone who is coming to the party please follow me to my house."

Glinda lead the group of people on the way to her house. Elphaba and Cronan walked at the back of the group. They were discussing the cat for a minute then Elphaba glanced at the other people.

"Cronan," Elphie asked. "What do you know about the other people in this class?"

"Let's see," Cronan said, glancing around. "Jemma and Chantal have been best friends since the day they were born. Their moms are best friends and their dads work together. Regina is mean. She's always been mean. I think she's evil, but maybe she has a reason, who knows. Aaron is nice and practically all the girls in school want to date him, but he's not interested. Lucy is friendly, I don't know much else about her. Potato, he left, his mom and dad are actors. Rumor has it his mom was a little loopy when she named him. Glinda, I actually don't know much about her. But you live with her, so you should know about her. Fiyero all I know is that his family is native. Tim is really smart. But he's strange at the same time. You probably know more than I do about him. I don't know much about you."

Elphie thought for a minute going through the names in her head. "What about you and Amber?"

"Amber? Well she ummm, she's unique."

"Unique how?"

"Well, I don't know if she'd want me telling you. I know this may sound strange but I know more about her than I do about myself."

"Is there anything wrong with her?"

"Wrong? Wrong how?"

"She seems very fearful."

"Fearful? You noticed that?"

"Yes, I did. She seems like she's afraid of people. Why?"

"Well, she wouldn't want me to tell people without asking her first."

Neither Elphie nor Cronan noticed when the pink haired girl had started walking with them, but Salem did. He meowed and jumped into Amber's arms as she spoke. "Go ahead and tell her Cronan, I want to be her friend and friends should know things about friends."


	14. Friends Should Know About Friends

Both Elphie and Cronan jumped when Amber spoke.

"Amber are you sure? I mean, it's not a good story. Do you really think she can be trusted? I mean no offence to you Elphaba, really I don't. But we did just meet you today after all."

Elphie smiled. "It's okay. I wouldn't trust myself either if I had just met me."

"Cronan if you don't tell her I will."

"If you're sure."

"I'm sure Cronan, please tell her. You tell it easier than I do."

"Okay. If you're sure. Alright, Elphaba for me to tell you this you have to promise me you won't tell anybody, without Amber saying it's okay first okay?"

"Not even Glinda?" Elphaba asked glancing ahead to her sister.

"Not without Amber saying it's okay."

Elphie looked at Amber and smiled. "I promise I won't tell."

"Okay, I probably should start at the beginning. That makes the most sense. Amber isn't as young as she seems. She's 15. She just acts eight. She has a reason for acting like that though. Amber has problems, problems in her head."

Elphie glanced at the little one who was petting Salem. "In her head? Like she has a mental disorder?"

"Yes. She suffers from depression. To start at the beginning. Amber didn't have a happy childhood. Her dad was abusive. Both physically and mentally. He had anger issues and would take them out on her, because she was afraid of him and he knew that. For a long time she suffered under his hand in silence, afraid to speak. She took to hiding at my house until her mom came home from work, because her mom was the only one who really cared about her. One day about three years ago her dad had a heart attack and died." Cronan glanced at Amber to see if she was still okay with her telling this.

Amber nodded slightly, to indicate that it was okay for her to keep telling the story. Salem nuzzled into Amber's arms but was strangely silent. He didn't meow. Amber kept petting him, silently wondering if Elphie would let her take him home.

"Amber is special. People at school make fun of her for a lot of things. Her dad used to hit her and call her stupid if she made anything less than an A. It was bad. She grew so used to that response to 'bad' grades that she still cries when she makes less than an A. People at school bully her for that, but they don't understand. They don't know what the consequences for that was, what it was like. I don't claim to know how she felt. I only know what she told me, either verbally or physically. But it's not something that people should bully her over. It became a lot easier for her when her mom enrolled her in this school. Here she can pick the classes she wants to take and learn the things she wants to learn. Wanting to learn and loving what she's learning makes it extremely easy for her to both enjoy school, and get excellent grades."

Amber looked at the ground. Salem was curled up on the bear she was carrying with his head nuzzled against her arm. He purred and looked up at her. Amber smiled slightly when she noticed he was looking at her.

"Amber isn't stupid, not by a long shot. Some people claim she is and that gets on my nerves. A lot. People just don't understand. I wish I could make them understand. They get really mad when Amber would rather work alone then with a group."

"From what I've seen of people in this school she's better off working alone."

"We all are. There isn't much incentive for anyone to work in a group here. However, there is one other good thing about this school, other than being able to take classes you like, Amber's brother doesn't go here. If he went here, there's no way Amber would survive here. Let me tell you about her brother. He's an ass. Excuse any use of bad language when I'm talking about him. He's worse than her father was. She still comes to my house to hide from her brother. She hates being alone with him. I don't blame her a bit after what he did to her."

Elphie looked at Amber and could see that she was close to crying, clutching the bear and Salem close to her. "You don't have to tell me. I'm fine with not knowing."

"She wants you to know. And I can't not tell you what she wants you to know. She'd tell you if I didn't. And that would be bad. In many ways. Alright. I'm going to make this quick. When Amber was 10 her brother raped her. That's why he's an ass. There's more to it, but I'm not telling you any more than that right now. Amber," Cronan said turning to Amber, "my sweet, come here."

Amber quickened her pace so that she caught up to Cronan. Cronan pulled her into a quick hug and kissed her head. Salem climbed up onto Amber's shoulder and batted at Cronan's hair when she leaned over. Elphie chuckled at that.

Amber smiled and then looked at Cronan and said, "Tell her the other thing too."

"The other thing?"

"About me and you. Tell her about me and you."

"Oh. Elphaba there is one more thing. Amber and I are well dating. I hope this doesn't bother you."

Elphie smiled. "Why would it bother me? You two are happy together aren't you?"

"Very happy."

"Then it doesn't bother me at all. It would bother me if you were dating but not happy together."

Elphie looked ahead to see where Glinda was and when she spotted her smiled. She looked at the nearest street sign and saw that they were only a couple of blocks from her house now. "We are almost to my house. I think you're both going to like my mom. She's really nice."


	15. It's a Mystery

When they finally got to Elphaba and Glinda’s house most of them were tired from walking so far, but energetic in anticipation of the pizza party. Lara welcomed them with open arms. “My home is your party place. Try not to break anything.”

“Mom,” Glinda said. “These are my friends.”

“I know, but that doesn’t mean it’s okay to break things.”

“Mom.”

“What. Glin’ you know I’m just teasing you. Please come in, the pizza isn’t here yet, but it will be soon.”

Most of the students walked into Glinda’s house, but Elphaba, Cronan and Amber loitered around on the front yard for a while first. Elphaba sighed when she looked at the house.

“Elphaba is something wrong?” Amber asked.

“No,” Elphaba said. “I just have trouble believing sometimes that I actually live in this house. It’s like a dream come true. A castle to me.”

“A castle?” Cronan asked. “Like in stories about knights, princesses and dragons?”

“Sort of,” Elphaba said. “It’s the first place I’ve ever really felt safe.”

“Elphaba,” Amber said. “You never told us about you.”

“There isn’t much to tell.” Elphaba looked at the house again then sat down on the grass. “I don’t really remember much. My mom brought me over here when I was little. I don’t remember where I came from, just that it was across the big water. I lived on the street for a long while doing odd jobs for food. I’m allergic to water. I met Glinda about three months ago when she ran into my alley and I saved her from some jerk that had been chasing her. She brought me here and her parents adopted me. I have no idea where my mom is now, or if she’s even still alive.”

“Glinda and her family really love you don’t they?”

“I think so, yes.”

“That’s good. That’s really, really good.”

“Yeah,” Elphaba said with a smile. She looked up at the house one more time then smiled. The color of the house reminded Elphaba of a ruby. She had seem them on occasion when wandering around the city. Lots of ladies wore rings that had the marvelous red stone in them. Once a lady even let her touch the stone. Elphaba would never forget that lady, she was odd, not like the other ladies in town. This lady didn’t seem to care that Elphaba was a dirty street child. She shared her lunch with her.

“Earth to Elphaba,” Cronan said. “We should probably join the party.”

Elphaba looked at her and stood up. “That’s probably a good idea.”

They walked up onto the porch and entered the house. Glinda met them inside the door smiling.

“I wondered where you three had gone. You didn’t get lost did you?”

“No Glin,” Elphaba said. “I was just admiring the house that I still can’t believe I actually live in.”

Salem looked up from Amber’s arms and glanced around the new surroundings. He didn’t do anything other than look. He curled back up and purred happily.

Elphaba looked around, she didn’t want to tell Glinda but she wasn’t really comfortable being around so many people in such a small space.

“Cronan,” Amber said tugging on her girlfriend’s sleeve. “There’s so many people.”

Cronan stared around counting. “There’s only like twelve.”

“Yeah, but that’s a lot. People scare me.”

Cronan glanced at Glinda and smiling said, “Is there somewhere bigger we could have the pizza party? It seems a little crowded in this room and Amber, and it looks to me like Elphaba too, isn’t very good with a lot of people in a small place.”

“The only other place we could have this party is the backyard.” Glinda glanced around, it did seem to be a lot of people to be in one room. She smiled. “I can ask my mom if we have some tables and chairs we could set up out back.”

Elphaba nodded. “That sounds like a good idea.”

Glinda walked off in search of her mother.

“Wanna come see my room?” Elphaba asked.

Amber nodded. “I’d like that.”

Cronan shrugged. “I go where Amber goes.”

Elphaba smiled and led Amber and Cronan up stairs to her room, along the way they passed by a picture on the wall and Amber stopped walking. She stared at the picture a moment before she spoke up about it. “Elphaba, who is this?”

Elphaba and Cronan stopped in the door of Elphaba’s room. Elphaba walked back to see what picture she was staring at. It was an old portrait of a man who was about forty years old and sported a very sharp looking army uniform, with a chest full of medals.

“I’m not quite sure,” Elphaba admitted. “I’ve never noticed this picture before. It’s probably one of Glinda’s relatives, maybe her grandfather.”

Amber nodded, satisfied with that answer. It seemed odd to her that Elphaba had never noticed the picture, when she clearly needed to pass by it every day to get to her bedroom, but she didn’t say anything about that. There was something off about the picture, but she didn’t quite know what. It intrigued her, like a puzzle just waiting to be solved.

“Earth to tiny human girl,” Cronan said taking Amber’s hand gently. “Are you just going to stare at the picture all day, or are you going to come see Elphaba’s room?”

“I’ll come see her room. There’s just something about this picture that fascinates me.”

Cronan shook her head and chuckled. “There’s just something about literally everything that fascinates you. I seem to recall that’s why you wanted to try magic in the first place. Now you have a new bear.”

“I’m rarely wrong when something fascinates me,” Amber said as they rejoined Elphaba at her door.

“Oh really, tell that to my toy robot you took apart, and couldn’t put back together.”

“You have a robot?” Elphaba asked. She smiled. “All I have, is a few stuffed animals that Glinda gave me.”

She walked into her room and sat down on the bed, still smiling. “I know the room may seem little, that’s mostly because of the bookshelves. I haven’t had a chance to read very many of the books on them, but Glinda and her family seem keen on the fact that I’ll love them.”

Amber and Cronan followed Elphaba into the room.

“Small? It’s not small. It’s perfect,” Amber said with a smile. “It’s bigger than my room is.”

“Amber, your room is a closet. That you only commandeered so you can have a door.” Cronan took Amber’s hand gently.

“I know, Cronan,” Amber said. “I’m just saying, Elphaba’s room is room sized.”

Elphaba smiled. “Thank you. I like it. It’s quite a bit cozier than anything else I’ve ever lived in.”

Amber smiled. “It’s cozier than any room I’ve ever had. Can I sleep here?”

“If Glinda’s mom says it’s okay, I don’t see why you couldn’t,” Elphaba said.

Salem looked up from Amber’s arms, awoken by all the talking. He jumped from Amber’s arms to Elphaba’s bed and meowed gently. He looked at the people in the room. He snuggled against Elphaba purring gently. Elphaba smiled and scratched his head gently. She smiled and picked him up. He turned his head and looked at her meowing.

“Technically,” Elphaba said to him. “I’m not supposed to have you here.”

“Why not?” Amber asked.

“Well, I don’t think I’m supposed to have pets.” Elphaba looked at the little kitten. “But, given the circumstances, I’m sure Glinda’s mom will say yes.”

“I thought you said that Glinda’s family adopted you.”

“That’s the story.” Elphaba stared at Salem for a moment. “We don’t know who I am. Who I really am. The government here doesn’t know who I am, other than ‘Elphaba Upland’. We can’t even find any records of the ship that brought me here.”

Amber and Cronan exchanged a confused glance. But Amber smiled slightly, for her this just seemed like another mystery to solve. She walked over and sat on Elphaba’s bed. Salem meowed in Elphaba’s hands and struggled for a moment, until Elphaba let him go and he jumped onto Amber’s lap. He curled up and purred gently.

“He really seems to like you.” Elphaba glanced at her new little friend.

“They say animals have an innate ability to tell when someone needs them.” Amber petted Salem gently. “I don’t know if it’s true, but I’d love to find out some day.” She smiled down at the cat in her lap. He looked up at her, purring.

Elphaba smiled. “I’d love to find that out someday too.”

Amber smiled. “I like you Elphaba. You’re not like other people. You aren’t mean.”

“Mean?” Elphaba frowned, remembering her first day of school.

“Mean. You’re not. Some people, a lot of people, are.”

“I have no reason to be mean to you.”

“I’m weird,” Amber said as if it was the only reason anyone was ever mean to anyone.

Cronan was mostly ignoring the two girls on the bed. She looked at the bookshelves Elphaba had trying to find something she could read while the two not-so-social girls were social with each other. She ended up picking up a book that sounded interesting, _The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy,_ then she sat down beside the wall and started reading it. She got completely lost in the book.

“You’re not weird. You seem perfectly normal to me.” She looked down at her hands. “But maybe I’m not the best judge of what’s normal. I mean, green isn’t normal, but here I am. Maybe I’m weird too.”

“We can be weird together,” Amber said excitedly.

“I don’t see why not.” Elphaba smiled. “By the way, you can call me Elphie.”

“Thanks Elphie,” Amber said bouncing excitedly, much in the same way Glinda did when she finally figured out the answer to a homework question, or her mom said they were going shopping. “Can I hug you?”

Elphaba nodded. “Of course you can.”

Amber giggled and bounced excitedly, then hugged Elphaba. “I’m glad I made friends with you.”

Elphaba smiled and hugged Amber back. “I’m glad I’m friends with you too.”

Amber sat back on the bed. “Before I met you, there was only Cronan. I love her to death, but I’ve always wanted to have more friends.”

“Friends are nice,” Elphaba said with a smile. “If it weren’t for my friends I’d still be living on the streets.”

Amber laid back on the bed. “I used to dream,” she said motioning at the ceiling, which was covered in tiny glow in the dark stars, “of what it would be like to lay on the grass watching the stars with my friends. I thought it would be a wonderful experience. But as I got older, I started to wonder if maybe, just maybe, some people were meant to be alone. Then I met Cronan, who didn’t care that I’m an oddball. Who wanted to protect me and help me from the day she met me. Who volunteered to make my brother pay for everything he’s done to me.”

Elphaba didn’t say anything. She had a feeling there was something Amber was trying to tell her but didn’t quite know how to.

“Cronan made me a promise. That no matter what I could trust her with anything. I can’t trust her with this though. I’m not going home.”

Elphaba looked over to Cronan to see if she had heard what Amber had said, but she was too absorbed in her book. Elphaba turned back to Amber. “What do you mean you aren’t going home?”

“Just that. I’m not going back.” Amber sighed. “I probably shouldn’t have bothered you with that information. But you know what it’s like to live on the streets. I was thinking maybe you could give me a little advice.”

“Amber, you’re 15 years old, but act eight. My main advice is don’t. However, if you feel like you have no other option listen to this advice. Never tell people that you live on the streets alone. Always if you can avoid the topic altogether. Never get shanghaied into doing an unpaid job for someone. It’s awful. If you can, exchange your labor for food, or very little money. People can write it off as a charitable donation to a homeless youth on their taxes. Or at least that’s what I was told once. I highly suggest you tell at least one trusted adult and one police officer why you’re running away. Otherwise by law they have to take you back home.”

Amber nodded slightly. “Would your mom understand?”

“Maybe,” Elphaba said. “Why can’t you tell Cronan though?”

“Because she won’t let me. She’ll try and stop me. And her mom and dad already said they don’t have money enough or room enough to keep me all the time. They don’t mind when I come hide at their house, but I can’t live there.”

“What if you had a job, a way to pay for the food you’d be eating?” Elphaba really didn’t want her new friend to end up on the street. Not knowing the way people in the city acted towards homeless people, especially kids.

“They already said no. I don’t want to push it or they might not let me come over at all.”

Elphaba looked at Amber and sighed. “What about here?”

“What about here? I don’t think your mom would appreciate being saddled with me.”

“We’ll just see about that. And be sure that you tell her you’re willing to work so that you won’t be just how do they say, mooching off of us.” Elphaba jumped up off the bed pulling Amber up with her.

“B-but-“

“No buts.”

Elphaba pulled Amber with her, running through the house looking for Lara. When she found her negotiating with the pizza delivery boy about the tip, she stopped, still holding tight to Amber’s hand. When her mom was done with the pizza boy and had gotten him to take the pizzas around to the backyard where Glinda and the others were, Elphaba spoke up. “Mum, I need to ask you a serious question.”

“Yes, Elphaba?” Lara turned to the girl.

“Can my friend stay here for a while?” Elphaba gently tugged on Amber’s hand and she peeked out from behind her.

“Like a sleepover while or like she’s in trouble and needs a place to stay while?” Lara asked trying to judge what kind of girl could have made friends with socially awkward Elphaba so fast.

“The second one.” Elphaba pulled Amber close to her.

“If it helps any, Mrs. Upland, I can work and help out around here,” Amber said shyly.

“What kind of trouble are you in?”

“Well…That’s kind of difficult to explain. Let’s just say, my mom can’t make my brother leave because he helps pay the rent, but it’s not safe for me and him to stay in the same house anymore and my mom is willing to help me work with the laws and stuff, but I just can’t go home anymore,” Amber said hoping that was explanation enough.

“I’ll have to talk to Hugh, but it should be fine. Do you have any other options?”

“I could live on the streets,” Amber whispered, scared that her reaction would be the same as Elphaba’s.

“That’s not a good idea. There are a lot of bad people in the world. I’ll talk to Hugh when he gets home, see what we can work out. For now why don’t you girls go collect the other ‘missing’ girl and head out to the party?”

Amber and Elphaba turned to head back upstairs.

“Oh and Elphaba, what’s this I heard about you having a kitten?”

“Can I explain at the party?” Elphaba asked hoping to buy herself a few minutes to think about how to both explain the cat and convince her mom to let her keep him.

“Of course.”

The two girls headed back up to Elphaba’s room to collect Salem and Cronan, while Lara headed out back to inform Glinda and the others that Elphaba and the other two girls would be coming out to the party after all.


	16. Chapter 16

Amber took the book out of Cronan’s hand. “Stop reading now. We’ve got a party to go to.”

Cronan looked up at the two girls. “Since when are you ever excited about a party?”

“Since there’s free pizza,” Amber said with a smile.

Cronan sighed and stood up. Salem looked up at them from the bed. He mewed seemingly wondering if he was going to the party too, or if he would get to stay up here and nap. He stood and stretched deciding that he’d had enough nap and was going with them, whether they wanted him to or not. He jumped off the bed and pranced over to them. He mewed and sat down, grooming his paw while he waited for them to move.

“What kind of pizza is going to be at this party?” Cronan asked with a sigh, she didn’t really like parties but she’d suffer it for pizza.

“Probably all kinds,” Elphaba said.

“I hope so,” Amber said with a smile. “I love pizza.”

“I know you do,” Cronan said. “You love all food.”

Amber smiled and nodded, “You’re not wrong.”

Elphie looked down at Salem and smiled. “Do you want to meet my mom?” she asked him.

He smiled and mewed his agreement.

“Good, because she wants to meet you too.”

Salem stood up and pranced over to the door. He stood there waiting for them to follow.

e ever lived in."er than anything else I'e room. "em, but Glinda and her family seem keen on the fact that I'ay to get to her bElphaba smiled and walked over to Salem. “You really want to go to the party with us, don’t you?”

Salem mewed happily and pranced to just outside the door. He sat down in the hallway and looked back at them.

Elphie smiled and walked into the hallway with Cronan and Amber following her. Amber smiled at Salem.

“Are you going to lead us to the party, Salem?” Amber asked him.

In response he walked up to her and climbed up her clothes to her shoulder. Amber simply chuckled. She really liked this cat. He was sweet and super adorable. Just like her girlfriend. Like Elphaba too, when she was comfortable with people.

Elphaba smiled and chuckled at her cat’s antics. “The party’s out back.” Elphaba led them downstairs smiling. They walked through the house and Elphaba opened the back door for them. Salem looked up at the noise of the people outside and buried his head in Amber’s hair. He didn’t like the people being noisy any more than Amber herself did.

Amber smiled a little and pulled Cronan, still holding the book she had been reading, over to one of the tables, a small picnic table, and sat down. “Is it good?”

“What?” Cronan asked.

“The book.”

“Yeah it’s good.”

Elphaba stood by the door. She felt a little awkward, there were so many people at the party and the backyard didn’t really seem much bigger than the living room had with everyone in it. She thought about going back inside, but Glinda saw her first.

“Elphie,” Glinda nearly squealed running over and tackle hugging her. “I thought you’d never come outside.”

“I almost didn’t,” Elphaba said a little flatly. “You know people scare me.”

“I know,” Glinda said quietly. “That’s why we left the table open for you and Amber. Introverts need to be protected at my parties. See, Amber already found the table, go sit with her. I’ll get you and her and Cronan some pizza.”

Elphaba smiled. Despite Glinda being such a social butterfly she really knew how to take care of the not-so-social types that might end up at her parties. Elphaba walked over the table and sat down beside Amber. “Glinda says this table is specially for us introverts.”

Amber nodded. “That’s good. I’d hate to have to climb a tree to get away from a party again…last time I did that—“

“She broke her arm,” Cronan said putting the book on the table.

“It was third grade,” Amber said as though that explained everything.

“I warned you that the branch you were stepping on was braking.”

“It was third grade.”

Elphaba smiled. She could definitely see herself getting used to having these two as friends. Salem peeked out of Amber’s hair and mewed then climbed down and started chasing a butterfly that was floating around the table. She could definitely get used to this.

“I brought pizza,” Glinda singsonged holding a pizza box up. She sat it on the table. “I know Elphie doesn’t like meat other than bacon and fish, so I brought cheese pizza. If either of you would prefer pepperoni, I can bring some of that over for you.”

“Cheese is fine with me,” Cronan said with a smile.

“I love cheese,” Amber said.

Glinda smiled. It would be good for Elphaba to have friends like these two girls. Friends that were just as introverted as her. “Have fun here guys, I’ll come back eventually,” she said nodding at Tim who was waving for her to come over. “I think Tim wants something from me.”

Elphaba nodded but giggled, “go see what tater tot wants.”

Cronan and Amber exchanged a look.

“Tater tot?” Cronan asked as though Elphaba had just insulted Tim.

“His family calls him that and he told me it’s okay if I do to,” Elphaba said reasonably.

“I’ll go see what he wants,” Glinda said smiling. “Later guys.”

“Cronan can I ask you a probably stupid question?” Elphaba said quietly.

“Sure,” Cronan said. “There are no stupid questions.”

“Are you really a girl?”

Cronan chuckled and Amber nearly bit her lip biting into the piece of pizza she had pulled out of the box.

“I am and at the same time I’m not,” Cronan said. “What makes you ask?”

“A lot of things,” Elphaba said. “Mostly, just a feeling.”

“I am currently a girl. I was born a girl. Sometimes I’m not a girl. It’s hard to explain.” Cronan said simply.

“I see. You sometimes feel like a girl, and sometimes not? It’s not like a magical sometimes you have girl parts and sometimes not, thing right? That would be strange.”

Cronan chuckled again. “No, not a magical body transformation, it’s a mental thing. I feel like a girl right now, so I am a girl. Sometimes I don’t feel like a girl, so I don’t call myself a girl.”

“That’s cool,” Elphaba said smiling. “How long has Amber had pink hair?”

“You sure ask a lot of questions.”

“A few months,” Amber said. “I got it when I first tried to do something magical.”

“Is it pink forever?”

“I think so, it’s grown some since that accident, and it’s pink at the roots too, so whatever I changed, I think it’s permanent.”

Elphaba smiled. She liked her new friends. They were odd, but that was okay, being normal seemed boring. She glanced around at the other people at the party and noticed that there was a lot of talking and a lot of people eating, but not much actually happening. Then when she looked back at Cronan and Amber she noticed someone standing behind Cronan, in the shadow of the house. “Mum?” she asked quietly, and the person stepped forward.

“Sorry if I may have startled you, Elphaba,” Lara said as she sat at the table with them. “I didn’t want to interrupt your conversation.”

Salem looked up from the other side of the table. The butterfly had flown away and he was scared of how far down the ground was so he stayed on the table instead of continuing to chase it. He noticed the new person at the table and mewed softly. Carefully he walked over to the new person, he had a feeling that she was important, mostly because she was bigger than all the other people he’d seen so far. “Mew.”

Lara smiled at the little kitten when he came over to her. “So this must be the cat I heard about.”

Elphaba nodded. “His name is Salem. I kind of made him appear with magic. Can I keep him?”

“A pet is a big responsibility Elphaba.”

“I’m his mommy, Amber said so. I can take care of him. Cats eat cat food. I’ll buy him some.”

“I’ll help,” Amber said. “If that makes it any better. I used to have a bunch of cats in my neighborhood that I’d take care of because no one else would. I know how to give them baths without them going crazy because of water. I know that kittens can drink milk, but cats can’t. I know a lot about caring for them, and I can teach it all to Elphaba.”

“Alright. You can keep him, but I expect you to be responsible for him. If he makes a mess, you clean it up.”

Elphaba smiled. “I can do that.” Salem bounded over to her and mewed happily. “I get to keep you buddy.” He mewed again and jumped up onto her shoulder, nuzzling himself into her hair.

Lara smiled. “He seems happy.”

The door clicked open then shut again and all four ladies at the table looked over to it. Hugh stood at it smiling. “Having a party?” he asked quietly walking over to Lara and smiling. “Didn’t think to invite me?” He mock pouted. “Am I not cool enough to be at this party?”

Lara laughed. “You’re home early.”

“Boss’ son got sick, so he let us go early.”

“Dad meet my friends,” Elphaba said proudly. “Cronan and Amber.” Salem mewed indignantly from Elphaba’s shoulder unhappy at being forgotten. “And my pet kitten, Salem.”

“Hi,” Amber said waving shyly at Hugh.

“It’s nice to meet you, sir,” Cronan said.

“I prefer Hugh to sir,” Hugh laughed. “It’s nice to meet you too.”

Salem jumped down onto the table and walked over to Hugh, investigating the new arrival. He’d never seen a guy so big before. “Mew.”

Hugh gently scratched the top of Salem’s head causing Salem to purr happily. “I don’t really care where the cat came from, he seems nice, but how’d he get the name Salem?”

“I named him that,” Elphaba said.

“Why though?”

Elphaba frowned slightly. She hadn’t really thought about why Salem, or how she’d even come up with the name. It just came to her, she hadn’t actually thought about it. “I don’t know. It just came to me. I saw him, he needed a name, so I called him Salem.”

“Fair enough,” Hugh said. “Did you say she could keep him?” he asked Lara.

“I did,” she nodded.

“Then I have no reason to disagree.”

Salem mewed happily and wandered around the table for a moment, before he felt his tiny kitty stomach growl at him and mewed hungrily.

“He’s probably hungry,” Amber mused looking at him. “I know—“ she opened the pizza box and pulled a small slice out. “Maybe it’s possible.”

“Amber I swear to god, don’t try to change the pizza into cat food with magic,” Cronan said slightly scared that she’d miscast the spell and cause the pizza to explode, or turn green or something.

“I can do it though, have faith, I made the bear. I can make some cat food.”

Cronan sighed but didn’t try to stop her again.

Amber smiled, and concentration on what she wanted the pizza to become started chanting the same spell they used earlier. Soon, much to everyone’s delight the pizza was transformed into a small bowl of kitten food.

“That was impressive,” Lara said with a smile. “I still remember the first time I tried magic.”

“I do too,” Hugh laughed. “As I recall, you turned your bed into a massive pile of marshmallows.”

“The ants didn’t go away for months,” Lara laughed. “My mom really didn’t appreciate that, but the marshmallows were tasty.”

The three girls laughed, and Salem trotted up to the food bowl and sniffed at it curiously then chowed down. 


	17. cake

Elphaba smiled as she watched Salem eat his food. She wondered slightly if the promised cake would ever arrive. She _didn’t_ have much experience with cake, but from what she did have she knew it was delicious. Especially when it had that wonderful icing that was all fluffy. Glinda smiled watching Elphaba.

It was a while of sitting in silence mostly wondering when the cake would arrive before anyone spoke again at the table. Amber had been watching Salem closely, trying to figure out if he was any different from a non-magically created kitten when she noticed, “His eyes aren’t yellow.”

“Is that important?” Elphaba asked. She’d never had a kitten before, so she had no idea what color their eyes were supposed to be.

“Not really,” Amber said. “It just struck me as a little odd, that’s all. Most black cats have yellow eyes.”

“I didn’t know that,” Elphaba said. “What color are his eyes?”

“Blue,” Amber said. “It’s not an unnatural color, but he’ll need to be taken to a vet. Blue eyes in cats are a sign that he might deaf.”

Elphaba was shocked by this news. The kitten seemed perfectly fine to her. Still, a vet probably should look at him. A professional opinion was usually a good thing. Of course, Elphaba didn’t know the first thing about vets. Maybe she should ask Glinda’s mom. She probably knew. “Mum, do you know a vet we could take him to?”

Lara nodded. “I do.” She turned to Hugh. “When do you think we should take him in?”

Hugh mused over this for a moment before smiling. “That’d be up to Charlie, wouldn’t it? I’ll go call him and see when we could get little Salem an appointment. He’ll need to get his shots too.”

“Shots?” Elphaba asked, a slight look of fear on her face. That didn’t sound fun.

“Don’t be scared Elphie,” Glinda said. “All pets, well at least dogs and cats, have to get their shots. It helps keep them from getting sick.”

Elphaba was about to respond to that when Lucy called out, “The cake’s here,” as she walked around the house with her mom.

There wasn’t enough room on the table with the pizza for the cake so after Salem jumped onto Elphaba’s shoulder they put the cake on that table. Elphaba and Salem both stared at the cake. It was delicious looking and Elphaba wanted nothing more than the corner slice, because it had the most icing. When Lucy’s mom smiled at her Elphaba looked down at the table quickly, shyly.

“Elphaba, there’s no need to be so shy,” Lucy said with a smile. “My mom won’t bite.”

“Well I hope not,” Glinda said. “That’d be cannibalism and that’s illegal.”

This got a chuckle out of most of the people at the table, but Elphaba was confused. “What’s a cannibal?”

The silence that followed was a little eerie. No one was sure if they should actually tell her or not. Finally Cronan, uncomfortable with the silence said, “People who eat people are cannibals. Who wants to slice the cake?”

“I’ll go get a knife,” Lara said standing up.

“I’ll go with you for some plates, or napkins or something,” Hugh said.

Soon all the kids were crowded around the table. There was debate over how big the slices of cake should be, how many each person would get and whether or not the icing or the cake was better. Lucy’s mom smiled at the three girls not taking part in the debate. “Elphaba, right?” she asked looking to Elphaba.

Elphaba nodded shyly.

“Which piece of cake would you like?”

“A corner,” Elphaba said quietly.

Lucy’s mom smiled. “So are you on the icing opinion or the cake opinion.”

“I like both.”

Lucy’s mom smiled more. “I’m inclined to agree with you on that one.” She looked to the other girls at the table. “And what about you two?”

“I don’t care,” Amber said with a smile. “As long as I get cake.”

“I agree,” Cronan said smiling.

Lucy’s mom nodded and started cutting the cake and handing out pieces. Elphaba, Cronan, and Amber began eating the cake happily. Soon after all the cake was distrubited, Glinda gently pulled Elphaba up from where she was sitting.

“Elphie, go inside,” she said firmly. She’d been looking up at the sky, and noticed something none of the other’s had. “We’ll join you soon.”

“Why?” Elphaba was sad, as much as she didn’t like being around people, she didn’t want to go back inside on such a nice day.

“It’s going to rain,” Glinda said.

Elphaba glanced up at the sky and saw the clouds moving in and nodded. “Okay, I’ll go. Guys, wanna come with me?”

Amber and Cronan smiled and picked up their plates.

“Of course we’ll come with you,” Amber said smiling.

With that they headed inside.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry it's been a while, and this was so short. I'm thinking of rewriting the story and my muse for it sort of vanished for a while, I apologize.


End file.
